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Liberty Classics

Liberalism and Laissez-Faire in Albert Schatz’s Economic and Social Individualism

A Liberty Classic Book Review of L’Individualisme économique et social. Ses origines, son évolution, ses formes contemporaines (Economic and Social Individualism: Its Origins, Its Evolution, Its Contemporary Forms), by Albert Schatz.1 Albert Schatz (1879-1940) was a professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Dijon in France. His 1907 book L’Individualisme économique et .. MORE

Book Review, Kling's Corner

The Simplicity Assumption

This attitude… is based on the belief that “the difficulties and disorders of humankind can be overcome by some large-scale adjustment: it suffices to devise a new arrangement, a new system, and people will be released from their temporary prison into a realm of success.” —Alan Jacobs, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a .. MORE

An Economist Looks at Europe

Europe in Disarray

“There is a lesson to be learnt by all democracies about the clash between politics and the economy… about the continuous and perhaps inevitable interference of politics in the economy. They are two worlds with their own logic, malfunctions and misunderstandings.” The European Union is sailing through choppy waters. Actually, this can be said of .. MORE

Most Recent

Government Growth

Tariffs Foreshadow a VAT?

By Scott Sumner

Statistical theory and methods

Discrepancy Does Not Imply Discrimination

By Jon Murphy

Labor Market

Minimum Wage Misery

By Walter Block

Industry Interviews: Individuals at Work

How to Walk the World (with Chris Arnade)

Austrian Economics

My Weekly Reading for July 13, 2025

By David Henderson

Economics and Culture

The Economics of Rage Bait

By Kevin Corcoran

Adam Smith

The Law and Economics: Against Siloing

By Jon Murphy

Economic Methods

Just a Coincidence?

By Scott Sumner

Economic Methods

Identities and Causation

By Kevin Corcoran

Central Planning

British Industrial Policy: This Time Is Different

By Pierre Lemieux

EconTalk

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econtalk-podcast

Michael Munger on the Perfect vs. the Good

Is the perfect really the enemy of the good? Or is it the other way around? In 2008, Duke University economist Michael Munger ran for governor and proposed increasing school choice through vouchers for the state’s poorest counties. But some lovers of liberty argued that it’s better to fight for eliminating public schools instead of .. MORE

econtalk-podcast

Noreena Hertz on the Lonely Century

Author and economist Noreena Hertz of University College London talks about her book, The Lonely Century, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Hertz blames social media and the individualist, pro-capitalism worldviews of leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan for the rise in loneliness in the developed world. Russ suggests some alternative causes. The result is a lively conversation .. MORE

EconLog

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Austrian Economics

My Weekly Reading for July 13, 2025

I’ve been setting up my cottage in Canada and relaxing, which is why I haven’t posted this week. I’ll pick up the pace this coming week. The Young Rothbard: an Uncomfortable Neoclassical Economist by Joseph T. Salerno, Mises.org, July 3. 2025. Excerpts: Rothbard took courses with all these eminent economists but was especially influenced by .. MORE

Labor Market

Minimum Wage Misery

I know of a young man who is mentally handicapped. He aspires for a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, or stocking shelves in a supermarket, or pushing a broom around pretty much anywhere. He is big and strong, and can easily do any of these types of work, but he is slow. He .. MORE

LIBERTY CLASSICS SERIES

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continued relevance of our classic titles.

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Book Titles

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Economics as a Coordination Problem: The Contributions of Friedrich A. Hayek

By Gerald P. O'Driscoll

Axel Leijonhufvud first suggested to me that reexamining Hayek’s contributions might be worthwhile. From the start, I sensed that Hayek’s theories were misunderstood in important respects. One major reason was the tidal wave of the Keynesian revolution. Contributing to the eager acceptance of Keynes’s message was a desperate desire for a cure for the economic .. MORE

The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative

By Vera C. Smith

Vera Smith’s The Rationale of Central Banking invites us to reassess our monetary institutions and give reform proposals due consideration. The decades since it first appeared in 1936 have restored its themes to relevance. Government-dominated monetary systems have continued to perform poorly. Other experience, as well as the work of James Buchanan and the Public .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Does Economics Need More than One Lesson?

By Michael D. Thomas

Henry Hazlitt’s 1946 book, Economics in One Lesson,1 remains relevant for readers to this day. In print since its publication, the book has sold more than a million copies, has been translated into 10 languages, and in 2019 became inspiration for a new book, Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well and Why .. MORE

Sick of Metaphors: Reading Shiller’s Narrative Economics

By Sarah Skwire

Book Review of Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events.1 by Robert J. Shiller. And if you wish to adorn, borrow the metaphor from something better in the same genus, if to denigrate, from something worse. —Aristotle, Rhetoric III, 1404b It is an odd experience to be reading Robert J. Shiller’s .. MORE

Conversations

VIDEO

A Conversation with Harold Demsetz

A professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and a primary figure in Chicago School Economics and in the field of Law and Economics, Harold Demsetz has contributed original research on the theory of the firm, regulation in markets, industrial organization, antitrust policy, transaction costs, externalities, and .. MORE

VIDEO

An Animal That Trades

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith. This video series, produced by AdamSmithWorks, can be watch as a full 38-minute feature, or in five thematic, classroom-friendly chunks. To access all, click here.   Below are some discussion prompts related to this video:   Part 1: The Invisible Hand .. 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

Macroeconomics

Gross Output

Gross output (GO) is a relatively new macroeconomic statistic that measures total economic activity. Gross domestic product (GDP)—the other major measure of economic activity—accounts only for final goods and services. However, GO’s scope includes both final output as well as intermediate inputs at all earlier stages of production. Therefore, GO is a much more comprehensive measure .. MORE

Economic Regulation, Government Policy, The Economics of Special Markets

Greenhouse Effect

What Is It? The “greenhouse effect” is a complicated process by which the earth is becoming progressively warmer. The earth is bathed in sunlight, some of it reflected back into space and some absorbed. If the absorption is not matched by radiation back into space, the earth will get warmer until the intensity of that .. MORE

Government Policy, Macroeconomics, Money and Banking

Bank Runs

A run on a bank occurs when a large number of depositors, fearing that their bank will be unable to repay their deposits in full and on time, simultaneously try to withdraw their funds immediately. This may create a problem because banks keep only a small fraction of deposits on hand in cash; they lend .. MORE

Quotes

We have never designed our economic system. We were not intelligent enough for that. We have tumbled into it and it has carried us to unforeseen heights and given rise to ambitions which may yet lead us to destroy it.

-F. A. Hayek

All plans of government, which suppose great reformations in the manners of mankind, are plainly imaginary.

-David Hume Full Quote >>

The market may be viewed, not as an institution facilitating the indirect fulfillment of individual desires…but on the contrary, as an institution through which individuals may cooperate to satisfy their wants at higher general levels of satisfaction.

-Israel Kirzner Full Quote >>