The Miracle of the Price System

This week's post at e3ne.org is about the miracle of the price system: Natural disasters harm people’s standard of living by destroying resources, but in a free marketplace, rising prices and profits in scarce goods give both buyers and sellers an incentive to heal the economic wound. Drawn by the possibility of making good profits …

Libertines, Hypocrites, and the Weak-Willed, With an Application to Socialism

Bryan Caplan argues that social conservatives should prefer libertines to hypocrites, contrary to the common meme that "at least hypocrites have moral standards." The argument is pretty simple: hypocrites seem to share your values, but when you least expect it, they will betray you. So far as it goes, the argument is pretty convincing. But …

Hundreds of Unnecessary Deaths in One NHS Hospital

A new public inquiry into abuses at the Mid Staffordshire National Health Service Trust's hospital has found a years-long pattern of fatal mistakes and abuses. The report makes for damning reading. From the BBC report: Years of abuse and neglect at the hospital led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients. But inquiry chairman, …

British NHS Starves, Dehydrates Babies to Death

The whole sickening story is here. Some quotations: Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of …

Left-Libertarian Economics’ Critique of Capitalism: Part Three

In my last look at left-libertarian economics, I argued that Kevin Carson's resurrection of the Labor Theory of Value adds no new information to standard, neoclassical price theory. Carson wishes to disapprove morally of profits but does not show that capitalists add nothing to the value of production. In particular, Carson acknowledges that capitalists contribute …

Is Left-Libertarian Economics a Degenerative Paradigm? Part One

"Left-libertarianism" can be defined in one of at least three ways. It can refer to "liberaltarianism," a tactical stance and set of policy positions combining a substantially libertarian thrust with a preference for making alliances with the modern center-left. It can refer to a revisionist philosophical movement that differs from Robert Nozick's entitlement theory of …

“Commodities” vs. “Basic Human Rights”

I'm going to make a generalization here. Treating a good as a "basic human right" is one way to make sure you don't have enough of it. Treating a good as a "commodity" is the only way to make sure you have plenty of it. I'm thinking about K-12 education, housing for the poor, access …