The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Price System, Property Rights on May 21st, 2012
I really enjoy watching Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. The show tracks a half-dozen major fishing boats as they journey around the Bering Sea exploring for crab during various seasons. The upcoming “Opie” season is among the most treacherous – there are only short time-spans when the crab-fishing season runs (we should blog that [...]
Posted in Property Rights on Jan 6th, 2012
How often have you heard the claim that global capitalism is responsible for destroying the world’s forests? I encounter it often. For example, suppose a rich Wall Street executive wishes to rebuild his office and sheath the entire thing in elaborate mahogany paneling? What happens? His desire is transmitted to designers, who transmit it to [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Property Rights, Socialism, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 17th, 2011
The concept of human rights is a particularly appealing one for folks on the left. Invoking human rights in an argument is sort of like insinuating that your opponents don’t think human beings matter. It’s a neat rhetorical trick, and it’s tiring. If a progressive, for example argues for nationalized health care, and I push [...]
Posted in Central Planning, Market Failures, Price System, Property Rights, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 28th, 2011
Among the avalanche of policies that has been enacted in the name of igniting a green economic revolution (taxes, subsidies, loan guarantees, tariffs, …) include mandates for use of particular technologies. Good economists will understand the basic problem with mandates (they are a classic input standard, which is theoretically and empirically inferior to output standard [...]
Posted in Property Rights on Sep 21st, 2011
6 years later and still a dumping ground.
Posted in Property Rights on Aug 17th, 2011
Courts have long recognized the rights of incumbent property owners against people “coming to the nuisance.” For example, if I run a hog farm in North Carolina, and have done so for decades (without harming anyone), then it is very unlikely I would be responsible for smell or water or air damages if someone decided [...]
Posted in Economics Problems, Property Rights on Jul 29th, 2011
I really try to do my best to read Progressive blogs and to stay away from getting near anything resembling an ad-hominem. With that in mind, I reprint in full today’s post from Scott Sumner, who is always well worth reading (of course, after reading him you will realize how utterly bad your macro education [...]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Jul 14th, 2011
Generally, the institution of private property is extremely effective at protecting many environmental resources. Consider resource conservation. Since resources are costly to obtain, and private property owners benefit from good stewardship of resources and suffer from poor stewardship (typically via the profit and loss mechanism), materials tend to be used effectively and new sources of [...]
Posted in Environment, Property Rights on Jun 14th, 2011
I mean it. I decided this summer to go to my library and take out every single Green Alarmist, Malthusian, anti-capitalist environmental book I could find.I’ve read several throughout my life, but all of them before I learned economics. I wanted to read the new stuff, and revisit the old stuff, not only with an [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Government Thuggery, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Property Rights on Feb 28th, 2011
Michael Graham describes the apoplexy of Boston’s Mayor Menino in regard to Walmart’s proposed entry into downtown: Wal-Mart does not suit the clientele we have in the city of Boston,” Menino said. “I don’t need employers like that in our city. Read the whole piece. Menino’s position is nothing short of hateful and tyrannical. Graham [...]
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