Voluntary Exchange Sources

As a naturally optimistic person, it vexes me that the word catastrophe has echoed in my mind since early March 2020. It’s the word the great smallpox eradicator Donald Henderson used in his 2006 prediction of the consequences of lockdown, a word that wasn’t around...

Author Matthew Crawford talks about his book Why We Drive with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The conversation is about driving but also much more: how human beings interact with technology and what we gain and give up when we embrace technology driven by corporate profit-seeking. (0...

(Don Boudreaux) Tweet… is from pages 327-328 of 2015 Nobel-laureate Angus Deaton’s 2013 book The Great Escape: The slowdown in [economic] growth is likely overstated, because the statisticians miss a lot of quality improvements, especially for services, which represent an increasing share of national output. The information...

(Don Boudreaux) Tweet… is from page 419 of Tom Palmer’s April 12th, 2005, address (“Challenges of Democratization“) to members of the Iraqi National Assembly, as this address is reprinted in Tom’s excellent 2009 book, Realizing Freedom: Democracy is not magic. Having a democracy does not guarantee...

(Don Boudreaux) TweetHave our rulers no decency or even awareness of reality? Lockdown tyrant Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City, danced with his wife on New Year’s Eve in an almost-empty Times Square. (Why do so many people still obey Covid-19 dictators such...

This year has mainly been one to forget. But in the spirit of celebrating the positive, we should remember 2020 as the 75th anniversary of the publication of F.A. Hayek’s most important paper: “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”  Friedrich A. Hayek may be best known...