Voluntary Exchange Sources

10 May The Essential James Buchanan

Posted at 16:30h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

The Essential James Buchanan is an excellent new primer on Buchanan written by Don Boudreaux and Randy Holcombe. It’s part of the Essential Scholar series from the Fraser Institute which also includes Hayek, Nozick, Locke, Smith and Hume among others. Each book can be downloaded...

10 May America’s Failed Experiment in Public Housing

Posted at 16:28h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

It leaves families living in squalid conditions, trapped in segregated neighborhoods. Rather than spending billions on socialized shelter, we need to put money in their pockets to give them choices.President Biden’s nearly $2 trillion infrastructure package calls for doubling down on public housing. Projects...

10 May Nationalist conservatives abandon the idea of liberty

Posted at 16:27h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of government,” George Washington said, “are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” Not long ago, virtually all...

10 May Dignity Not Included

Posted at 16:27h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

Did you know that nearly EIGHTY PERCENT of Americans will experience at least one year of living at or below the poverty level? On the flip side, almost 40% of Americans will also spend at least one year in the top 10% of income earners....

09 May An Autoethnographic Account of the Free Market: My Father

Posted at 07:35h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

Instead of approaching the free market abstractly, in this short series, I’ll approach it from the standpoint of my own experience. In short, I’ll treat the free market in an autoethnographic account. Autoethnography is just what the word suggests: it is a genre of ethnographic...

09 May From the comments, on restaurant labor and UI

Posted at 07:28h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

I own a restaurant and bar in a rural community in western Washington. Our state minimum wage is currently $13.69 per hour which is what we pay our tipped front of the house employees. After tips these employees are making $25 to $35 per hour....

08 May Let’s Make A Deal: The Bourgeois Deal Among Many Others

Posted at 18:01h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

In her trilogy of books on what she calls “the Bourgeois Era,” Deirdre McCloskey argues that we owe our prosperity to the Bourgeois Deal, a broad social consensus that embraces market-tested innovation. In our book Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich: How the...

07 May Quotation of the Day…

Posted at 22:21h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

(Don Boudreaux) Tweet… is from page 129 of University of Notre Dame philosopher James Otteson’s excellent 2021 book, Seven Deadly Economic Sins: [C]ulture is critically important for growing prosperity, but culture can change – and quickly. The culture that enabled the growth in worldwide prosperity we have...

07 May Efficiently combating poverty

Posted at 22:21h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

This essay won firstplace in the essay contest of the Acton Institute’s 2020 Poverty Cure Summit, which took place on Nov. 18-19, 2020. This essay is presented as it was submitted. – Ed. Eradicating poverty, or at least effectively reducing it, is one of the oldest...

07 May Dissenters, Unite!

Posted at 22:16h in Voluntary Exchange Sources by one80Admin

Being contrarian is hard work. You need to withstand ridicule, the loss of friends, employment, and acquaintances, face the imminent possibility that most of the time you’ll be wrong, and abandon the warm fuzzy feeling of having your otherwise friendly peers confirming your bias. Yet, authentic...