The Chicago School of economics favored and still favors the theory of “regulatory capture.”. Under this theory, an industry or some portions of an industry cultivate government to obtain laws and rules that favor the industry. The government trades favors for what it wants. But there is more to the story. The government not only baits the trap; it also attempts to crush market substitutes that spring up in response to quality declines. FULL ARTICLE

Joseph Stiglitz shared the Nobel Prize in 2001 partly on the basis of an important paper of his (with Greenwald) that says interventions can make everyone better off. He is a prolific, outspoken, and outstanding spokesman for the pro-government school. Stiglitz sees market imperfections that are remediable by government everywhere he looks; and this paper is supposed to provide the intellectual and analytical foundation for government intervention. Here I argue that this important and oft-cited paper completely fails to prove the potential worth of government interventions. FULL ARTICLE

If human action always aims at a purpose, which by definition it does, then human action must be rational, that is, consistent with reason or guided by one’s will and intellect. It can never be termed irrational. What then is irrationality? According to Mises, irrationality is not the opposite of action or purposeful behavior, that is, it is not willed behavior without a purpose. All willed behavior has a purpose. Irrational behavior is behavior induced by response to stimuli, behavior that lies beyond the control of a person’s will or volition. FULL ARTICLE

The moral case of self-ownership can be strengthened even further by reflecting on its economic dimmension, writes Michael Rozeff. When we realize that a great many of our acts connect with other acts of ours and of other people in a web that extends out in space and backwards and forwards in time, we see that it is practically impossible for someone else to make us better off by making our decisions for us. FULL ARTICLE