I’ve filmed a lot of videos for the Institute for Humane Studies’ LearnLiberty project. They just released my favorite one today:
This is an attempt to address what, I think, is the fundamental pedagogical problem the economics profession faces: the median voter doesn’t support subsidies and the like because he or she has a nuanced and subtle understanding of market failure. The median voter is enthusiastic about subsidies because he or she hasn’t learned the lessons Frederic Bastiat tried to teach us in the 1800s.
Even when people are economically literate enough to know the conditions under which markets can be said to fail, they rarely carry the analysis far enough. James Buchanan, F.A. Hayek, and Elinor Ostrom, for example, aren’t taken as seriously as they deserve to be in discussions of intervention. Steven Horwitz and I discussed the case against “market failure” arguments for intervention in one of April’s EconLib featured articles.
Speaking of Steven Horwitz, the video above has its roots in a question Steve asked on Facebook a couple of years ago: “is Art Carden the John Cleese of LearnLiberty?” I found the comparison extremely flattering, and it gave me the idea for the video.
Disclosure: IHS pays me for what I do for them.
READER COMMENTS
David R. Henderson
Jul 2 2013 at 5:01pm
Excellent, Art. You’re a true card.
BTW, I hope they pay you for what you do. On that one, you earned it, buddy. I generally think of myself as being willing to do outlandish things to make a point. But you’ve trumped me, and I mean that in the most complimentary way.
David R. Henderson
Jul 2 2013 at 5:03pm
BTW, Bastiat wrote in the 1800s, not the 1900s.
MG
Jul 3 2013 at 10:24am
I would personally like to thank you for The Story of Broke Response. I “keep” it in the same place in my “medicine cabinet” where I keep
(The Story of Stuff Response, produced by others and linked to here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5uJgG05xUY).
They are essential innoculants against the Annie Leonard virus and have help me fight it, and its carriers in the American (government paid) school system.
Art Carden
Jul 3 2013 at 11:17am
David: thanks to you & Bryan for pointing out the typo. That’s what happens when you’re thinking “00s” and “19th century” at the same time. Guh-Derp.
guthrie
Jul 3 2013 at 6:35pm
As a regular reader of this blog, and someone who’s just produced a show called ‘Full Monty Python’, I must say ‘Stop this, stop this at once. Far too silly’. 😉
Comments are closed.