Ideas Matter

Being Thankful for Good Diplomacy

In the U.S., it's Memorial Day. Americans use this day to honor U.S. military men and women who have made sacrifices for freedom and country. It's meant to honor the fallen, but people use it to thank the living too.

I'd like to use the day for something a little different. There are those who prevent war and seek peace. Maybe it would not be inappropriate to thank those working -- in light and shadow -- to see to it wars never happen in the first place.

The Allure of Marxism

Why are people still drawn to Marxism? Did you know it's still hot among the professoriate? I know, I know. Thoroughly discredited. But they eat that stuff up in the ivory tower. Brad Thompson's thesis is essentially that Marx was a great sloganeer. And he was. (I'd also argue that people have inherent dispositions to socialism.) My friend Michael Strong argues quite powerfully that -- due to academia's continuing fixation with Marx -- higher ed may be the "world's leading social problem."

He writes: 

Deadly Technology and the Role of Government

All it takes is one mad (evil or crazy) scientist to destroy the human race, according to Michio Kaku. So does government have a role in ensuring these technologies are not used for nefarious -- even catastrophic ends?

Rules of Power Politics - Machiavelli Meets Tullock

This video is not just an outline for aspiring politicians. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita actually describes, however indirectly, the architecture of power. I can't wait to read his book. It sounds to me like what you get when you marry Machiavelli with Buchanan and Tullock (public choice theory). So what do we mean by the architecture of power?

State of Control - USA?

To watch this trailer, one may get the feeling that this, while sad, is remote. These are people in a distant land, practicing a different religion, wearing different cloths, living under different rule. And yet we are so close to living in this kind of state. It's happening right under our noses.

Americans love spectacle. The biggest issues of the day are secret service agents and Columbian prostitutes. People are outraged by either side of the gay marriage debate -- and justifiably so. But we need to get some perspective. Our most fundamental freedoms are being stripped away right now.

Where Communism Still Lives

Around the world, pockets of communists still cling to power. They're either smaller regimes run by a cadre of strongmen, or they have evolved into what has come to be known as "state capitalism." In this latter form, cronyism is considered a feature not a bug. The question for me is: will these pockets of communism linger? Or will they linger for a while, but eventually evolve into another form? And is state capitalism becoming the dominant form for the globe?

Judge Napolitano: What Happened to America?

This video may strike our international readers as being rather U.S.-centric. But it's for everyone, let me assure you. In Andrew Napolitano's goodbye address, he is speaking unashamedly in favor of the principles that helped found the United States. But he is also speaking in universals. You see, what Napolitano is saying above used to be our American secular religion.

The enemies of limited government have succeeded in suggesting people like Napolitano are on the fringe, that his ideas are quaint, and those who still espouse those ideas are crude troublemakers.

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?

Was Milton Friedman Right? What A Difference Thirty Years Makes

What a difference thirty years makes.

Before we get into the evidence, we should mention that Frances Fox Piven seems to be conflating colonialism with capitalism. If, for example, property rights institutions provide a basis for any free enterprise system, it's difficult to see how commerce could have amounted to peasants losing their farms (unless, of course, by lose she means sold). When peasants have their land taken, it's always by governments or cronies colluding with governments to undermine property rights.

But back to the question--relatively speaking (because there is no perfectly free system on earth): Do the most economically free countries tend to produce more freedom and equality?

Objective Rules for Subjective Values

Here's a great video for the libertarian philosophers among you. The question is: if value is subjective, how can we have a system of objective rights and rules? Aeon Skoble lays it out nicely in this video. And I think for an introduction to the question, this is a tidy talk. I do, however, have some concerns.