Free Markets
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Swift vs. Sweep: The Eternal Battle
There’s something about the physical experience of a spot like Cotswold Cottage at the American Institute for Economic Research that connects you to the deep past, in all its tribulations and struggle for progress, but also points to a brilliant future. Sometimes we need experiences like this to cause reflection of where we’ve been and…
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How Instant Coffee Became Wonderful
The hotel room in Sydney, Australia, didn’t have a coffee pot. But there was a water heater and some packages of instant coffee. Blech, right? That’s what I remember from the old days, meaning some uncertain point in the past. But desperation forced experimentation. I heated the water, poured the packet of Moccona “Indulgence” in…
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With Scratch-and-Sniff Stamps, the Post Office Updates Itself to the 1970s
The post offices of the world are like the last of the dinosaurs roaming the earth long after evolution selected against their existence.
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The Sock Slider, It Turns Out, Is a Godsend
As it turns out, many people have needs that cannot be appreciated or discerned in advance by intellectuals. Many times, they cannot even understand them. This has been obvious since the late 19th century, when the socialist critique of the capitalist market underwent a huge shift. The Marxists had predicted that capitalism would impoverish the…
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Beware the Friend/Enemy Binary of Politics
Markets require that people play nice. Give these same people a forum in which to argue politics and they become barbaric. Why is that?
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The Solution to City Transit Is Decentralized
The rise of the city scooter as part of the app economy is a fantastic example of how markets generate solutions in the face of intractable problems. The more people tool around on these wonderful scooters, the lighter the traffic, the cleaner the city, and the happier people are. Note that no central planner came…
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Five Reasons the Future Isn’t Here Yet
The interactions and feedback loops between invention, implementation, and full-on adoption is a fascinating process to watch. It can’t be gamed. It relies on something no one can control: the price system, human choice, resource tradeoffs, and case-by-case circumstances of time and place.
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The Miracle of Canned Tuna Salad
Here is what is so amazing. It all happens without any central direction from the top down. In fact, we can go further to say that it could not happen under central direction. No government bureaucrat made this possible. They only get in the way. You need owners, marketers, manufacturers, prices, markets, banks, millions of…
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American Pianos Vanished but the Music Didn’t Die
The years between 1890 and the Second World War were the golden age of the American piano. Pianos were the biggest-ticket item on every household budget besides the house itself. Everyone had to have one. Those who didn’t have one aspired to have one. It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they…
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Kant was a Friend of Classical Liberalism
Individual freedom plays a central role in Immanuel Kant’s moral and political philosophy. He writes, “Freedom (independence from being constrained by another’s choice, insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity.” Kant’s…
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•
Swift vs. Sweep: The Eternal Battle
There’s something about the physical experience of a spot like Cotswold Cottage at the American Institute for Economic Research that connects you to the deep past, in all its tribulations and struggle for progress, but also points to a brilliant future. Sometimes we need experiences like this to cause reflection of where we’ve been and…
-
•
How Instant Coffee Became Wonderful
The hotel room in Sydney, Australia, didn’t have a coffee pot. But there was a water heater and some packages of instant coffee. Blech, right? That’s what I remember from the old days, meaning some uncertain point in the past. But desperation forced experimentation. I heated the water, poured the packet of Moccona “Indulgence” in…
-
•
With Scratch-and-Sniff Stamps, the Post Office Updates Itself to the 1970s
The post offices of the world are like the last of the dinosaurs roaming the earth long after evolution selected against their existence.
-
•
The Sock Slider, It Turns Out, Is a Godsend
As it turns out, many people have needs that cannot be appreciated or discerned in advance by intellectuals. Many times, they cannot even understand them. This has been obvious since the late 19th century, when the socialist critique of the capitalist market underwent a huge shift. The Marxists had predicted that capitalism would impoverish the…
-
•
Beware the Friend/Enemy Binary of Politics
Markets require that people play nice. Give these same people a forum in which to argue politics and they become barbaric. Why is that?
-
•
The Solution to City Transit Is Decentralized
The rise of the city scooter as part of the app economy is a fantastic example of how markets generate solutions in the face of intractable problems. The more people tool around on these wonderful scooters, the lighter the traffic, the cleaner the city, and the happier people are. Note that no central planner came…
-
•
Five Reasons the Future Isn’t Here Yet
The interactions and feedback loops between invention, implementation, and full-on adoption is a fascinating process to watch. It can’t be gamed. It relies on something no one can control: the price system, human choice, resource tradeoffs, and case-by-case circumstances of time and place.
-
•
The Miracle of Canned Tuna Salad
Here is what is so amazing. It all happens without any central direction from the top down. In fact, we can go further to say that it could not happen under central direction. No government bureaucrat made this possible. They only get in the way. You need owners, marketers, manufacturers, prices, markets, banks, millions of…
-
•
American Pianos Vanished but the Music Didn’t Die
The years between 1890 and the Second World War were the golden age of the American piano. Pianos were the biggest-ticket item on every household budget besides the house itself. Everyone had to have one. Those who didn’t have one aspired to have one. It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they…
-
•
Kant was a Friend of Classical Liberalism
Individual freedom plays a central role in Immanuel Kant’s moral and political philosophy. He writes, “Freedom (independence from being constrained by another’s choice, insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity.” Kant’s…