Random header image... Refresh for more!

“The Meat Market”

by Will

Interesting op-ed from Alex Tabarrok on organ sales.

January 9, 2010   1 Comment

Big is beautiful (and inevitable)

by Will

A day or two ago, I offhandedly endorsed an article from Jagdish Bhagwati on the continued relevance of global free trade. This provoked a few heated responses from Kevin Carson, who has long argued that economic globalization is almost entirely a result of an elaborate web of state-subsidized networks like public transportation. A truly free market, Carson argues, would privilege locally produced goods and services over  long-distance competitors, who rely on an artificial network of state intervention to sustain their business model. It’s an interesting hypothesis, though absent a visit to some alternate universe without railroads and the interstate highway system, I don’t think we will ever be able to conclusively test the merits of his argument. Carson’s comments have provoked a few of my own thoughts on the intersection of local concerns and the free market, however:

[Read more →]

October 14, 2009   31 Comments

Understanding Markets

by Mark Thompson

E.D. thinks that market economics don’t apply to education.  Chris disagrees, but thinks that market economics ultimately are about controlling people and inevitably creates – specifically in the realm of education – a form of corporatism.  Chris also explains that this is why he is not a libertarian. 

I.  FREE MARKET ECONOMICS ARE NOT ABOUT CONTROLLING PEOPLE

I find these criticisms a bit off.  First, Chris’ argument against the field of economics as a form of study is almost identical to some of the arguments made by the undeniably mainstream libertarian Will Wilkinson against the practice of economics as a useful policy tool.  While I don’t pretend to speak for John, I think most advocates of free market economics would actually agree with this critique – while economics may be useful at creating the most “efficient” outcome for achieving a particular result, they are not useful as a tool for determining which results are better or worse or are more worth pursuing. 

But to me that doesn’t mean that basic economics is worthless, nor does it have anything to do with understanding markets.  It just means that the democratic value of any sort of science as a policy tool is desperately limited: it can, at least theoretically, give us a path for achieving solutions; what it emphatically cannot do is tell us what is and is not a problem, nor what would constitute an acceptable solution, and it definitely cannot evaluate whether solving the problem is more valuable than the inevitable collateral consequences. 

[Read more →]

June 9, 2009   61 Comments

Page 1 of 11