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Thinking Straight

“Che” Guevara in the Vatican, Part II

“The great turning point came in 2013 with the election of Pope Francis, who seemed determined to follow in the footsteps of his Argentinian countryman, the major revolutionary ‘Che’ Guevara.”   —“Che” Guevara in the Vatican, Part I, by Anthony de Jasay. Library of Economics and Liberty, May 2, 2016. In my column last month, .. MORE

Article

Adam Smith on Capitalism and the Common Good

In a speech last November at Catholic University,1 Marco Rubio elaborated a program of “common good capitalism.” Drawing on the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII and John Paul II, Rubio presents a vision of “a system of free enterprise in which workers fulfill their obligation to work and enjoy the benefits of their work, and .. MORE

Book Review, Kling's Corner

Mir McLuhanism

… digital media not only enhance information exchange and render offline life obsolete—they also reverse literacy and retrieve orality. … This book is about orality, which once was obsolesced by writing, and about literacy, which is now becoming obsolesced by digital media. —Andrey Mir, Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s .. MORE

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Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings

Introducing Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion

By Kevin Corcoran

Trade Barriers

The Trade Debate Revisited

By Scott Sumner

Economic History

Of ChatGPT’s Sense of Humor

By Pierre Lemieux

Cross-country Comparisons

My Weekly Reading for April 20, 2025

By David Henderson

Cost-benefit Analysis

Free Stuff is Expensive

By Art Carden

International Trade

Public Statement in Favor of Free Trade and Against Tariffs

By David Henderson

Economics of Crime

Businesses are Suffering

By Scott Sumner

Political Economy

Why Hold Laws As Binding On the Rulers

By Pierre Lemieux

EconTalk

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econtalk-podcast

Why Christianity Needs to Help Save Democracy (with Jonathan Rauch)

How does a nice Jewish boy who is also a gay atheist have the chutzpah to lecture Christianity on its obligations to democracy? Listen to author Jonathan Rauch talk about his book Cross Purposes with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts as Rauch makes the case for what he calls a thicker Christianity.

econtalk-extra

More than intellectual golf?

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” What has it meant to you in the past, and might there be a way to apply this caution to the way we approach politics? That’s what this episode is about. It’s fan favorite Mike Munger’s 44th appearance on EconTalk, .. MORE

EconLog

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Economic History

Of ChatGPT’s Sense of Humor

Over more than two years, I have occasionally discussed my experience with AI bots—mainly ChatGPT, which I have also used for the featured images of my posts. But except in “TikTok, Godot, Absurd Politics, and Knaves,” I have not directly addressed this bot’s sense of humor, which has become rather impressive. Let me give other .. MORE

Trade Barriers

The Trade Debate Revisited

Within the Trump administration there is a vigorous debate between two camps.  One group, headed by Peter Navarro, might be called the “true believers”.  They favor mercantilist economic policies of the sort that Argentina implemented during the 1940s and 1950s.  Another group, headed by Elon Musk, might be called the free traders.  In the middle .. MORE

LIBERTY CLASSICS SERIES

Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.

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Book Titles

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Principles of Economics

By Alfred Marshall

Economic conditions are constantly changing, and each generation looks at its own problems in its own way. In England, as well as on the Continent and in America, Economic studies are being more vigorously pursued now than ever before; but all this activity has only shown the more clearly that Economic science is, and must .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

The Tyranny of the National Interest

By Pierre Lemieux

Statements such as “public policy X is (or is not) in the national interest” are omnipresent. For example, Peter Navarro and Greg Autry claim that “some American CEOs” are acting against “our national interest.”1 In reality, the concept of national interest is, at best, meaningless. At worst, the concept of national interest is a tool .. MORE

Inside Leviathan: Lessons from Gordon Tullock’s Bureaucracy

By Stefanie Haeffele and Anne Hobson

Bureaucracy has a reputation of being a ‘necessary evil’ in modern western society. We are quick to blame bureaucracy for long waits at the DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles], lengthy approval processes for building permits, and for the piles of paperwork at work. Bureaucracy is the source of mandatory workplace trainings and the reason for .. MORE

Conversations

VIDEO

Capitalism, Government, and the Good Society

On April 10, 2013, Liberty Fund and Butler University sponsored a symposium, “Capitalism, Government, and the Good Society.” The evening began with solo presentations by the three participants–Michael Munger of Duke University, Robert Skidelsky of the University of Warwick, and Richard Epstein of New York University. (Travel complications forced the fourth invited participant, James Galbraith .. MORE

VIDEO

A Conversation with Ronald H. Coase

Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase (1910-2013) was recorded in 2001 in an extended video now available to the public. Coase’s articles, “The Problem of Social Cost” and “The Nature of the Firm” are among the most important and most often cited works in the whole of economic literature. Coase recounts how he tried to encourage .. MORE

Econlib Videos

Intellectual Portrait Series

Conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time

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Guides

College Economics Topics

Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.

Economist Biographies

From the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

The Economics of Special Markets

Environmentalism, A Preface

Many environmentalists see preserving the environment as a purely ethical issue that has no connection to economics. In fact, as MIT economist Lester Thurow wrote in The Zero-Sum Society, “Environmentalism is not ethical values pitted against economic values. It is thoroughly economic.” What Thurow means is that preserving the environment is what economists call a .. MORE

Taxes

Negative Income Tax

The idea of a negative income tax (NIT) is commonly thought to have originated with economist Milton Friedman, who advocated it in his 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom. Others, notably the late Joseph Pechman, long-time tax dean of the Brookings Institution, credited the University of Wisconsin’s Robert Lampman with at least simultaneous discovery and with .. MORE

Economic Regulation, Economics of Legal Issues, Government Policy, The Economics of Special Markets, The Marketplace

Urban Transportation

The defining trait of urban areas is density: of people, activities, and structures. The defining trait of urban transportation is the ability to cope with this density while moving people and goods. Density creates challenges for urban transportation because of crowding and the expense of providing infrastructure in built-up areas. It also creates certain advantages .. MORE

Quotes

“…money is the more requisite, the more civilized a nation is, and the further it has carried the division of labour.”

-Jean-Baptiste Say

There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism.

-John Stuart Mill Full Quote >>

Once it has been perceived that the division of labour is the essence of society, nothing remains of the antithesis between individual and society. The contradiction between individual principle and social principle disappears.

-Ludwig von Mises Full Quote >>