Ideas Matter

Now You Know Why it's Milton Friedman's Century

I once heard Sec. George Shultz say "people liked to argue with Milton Friedman when he's not around." In this video you can see why. Unfortunately, you have a guy who wants to ask a "three-part" question. Fortunately, you have a man who can answer each part -- masterfully. Allow me to riff on a couple of Friedman's points that are particularly brilliant.

The Economic Way of Thinking and Politics Without Romance

Okay, now that you've watched this video, ask yourself: what if you apply the economic way of thinking to political action? In other words, even though we don't need politicians to get the "good orders" we see around us, we nevertheless have to live with these characters. So what do actions, interactions and consequences have to do with the results we see in the public sphere (that we're so often troubled by)?

Resolving the Immigration Paradox

Immigration is a tough issue. Ben Powell makes a strong economic case for open immigration here. After all, labor is a market. And the market mechanism has a way of reallocating labor in ways that is beneficial for everyone.

Yet we know that there are generous welfare programs in many states that mean immigants can come illegally and gain access to costly social services. If a robust welfare state is available to all comers, this is -- of course -- unsustainable (as it has been in Europe). This was essentially Milton Friedman's more pragmatic position. And he has a point. That is, he was for open immigration as long as the welfare state could be dismantled. And of course it isn't.

So how might we cut this immigration Gordian Knot?

Hypocrites and Half-Wits - Pen or Sword?

Free to Choose Press is proud to present: Hypocrites and Half-Wits: A Dose of Sanity from Cafe Hayek 

You want to work your ultra-liberal friends into a tizzy? What about your stoggy protectionist buddies? Nowhere will you find reasoned economic, and dare-I-say ethical, thinking carried out with such confidence and concision.

Ron Paul's Victory

Okay, leading off with the (Ron) Paul vs. Paul (Krugman) debate is pretty cheap. But please read on now that I've (hopefully) sucked you in. 

Keynes's Magic Dipping Ladel

John Maynard Keynes probably didn't mean to supply justification for any road to serfdom. But he did. We're left with a mythology of job creation that only creates phantom jobs -- namely visible jobs contrived from the largess (but corresponding invisible job losses somewhere else). This is what happens when you divert resources from productive uses to less productive uses -- all in the name of "stimulating" the economy.

Milton Friedman Tribute

On the heels of the "If I wanted America to fail..." the narrator offers a restatement of the pencil story originally told by Leonard Reed (and channeled famously by Milton Friedman). Reed's is still a great version.

What are you doing for Milton Friedman's Century?

Water, Water Everywhere: Markets in H2O?

Milton Friedman once quipped: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." Well, we put state and local governments in charge of water and guess what happens?

Matt Ridley Dishes Up Rational Optimism

Are we going to run out of food, resources and green space? Does trade make one party worse off? Is inequality the root of the world's problems? Is the world going to overheat and cause catastrophe?

Matt Ridley answers these questions and more in the best writing on the relationship between resources, markets and well-being since Julian Simon. What's superb about Ridley's work is that he not only slays the doommongers with flair, but he explains the beautiful processes set in motion by people serving each other creatively.

So why are people so pessimistic?

What's the Labor of a Burger Flipper Worth?

"Living wage" is common parlance these days. And yet if Antony Davies is right, the supply and demand for labor is no different from that self-same law applied in other areas of the economy. You can't legislate away an economic law without distortions. As we've shown here many times, minimum wages actually hurt poor people.

Even if we agreed with Karl Marx that an "unemployed army" of immigrants and other poor people keep the price of low-skill labor low, can't we agree that 4 productive people making $5 per hour (labor market rate) is better for the social order than 2 productive people making $7.50 and 2 people drawing government benefits while doing nothing of value?