The Inevitable Failure of Socialism
Among the most important articles ever written in economics is Ludwig von Mises’s 1920 paper “Die Wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen Gemeinwesen”...
Donald J. Boudreaux
The Radical Message of Economics Well-Learned
From the moment that I, at the age of 18, first became conscious that I had concrete ideological views, my...
On Track for Calamitous Policy Outcomes
You must travel down one of two – A or B – railroad tracks, but you can choose between A...
Letters to the Editor
For more than three decades I’ve written letters-to-the-editor on an almost daily basis. The number of such letters that I’ve...
Teaching Introductory Economics
In just over a week I’ll meet the 283 students in my Fall 2021 ECON 103 – “Principles of Microeconomics”...
Some Classical Liberal Priors
No one can seriously deny that each person has priors – suppositions about the workings of the world that are...
Rich Man, Poor Man: Comparing the Value of a Dollar to Each
A familiar case for progressive taxation of incomes – and, more generally, for income redistribution – rests on the proposition...
The Invisible Hand Relies Upon Visible Prices
Adam Smith famously described each person who pursues his or her own interest in markets as being “led by an...
Beware of Totalitarian Scare-Mongering
The most iconic line from The Godfather is, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Don Corleone wasn’t...
“Externality” Is No Good Excuse for Mandatory Vaccination
I am not, and never have been, an anti-vaxxer. When my one child, Thomas, was young neither his mother nor...
The Graduation Speech That I Would Have Given If Invited
Yet another college graduation season has come and gone without any school inviting me to deliver the keynote speech. Sigh....
Low Wages Are Not Proof that Workers Have Poor Bargaining Power
A common argument in support of minimum wages is that low-skilled – and, hence, low-paid – workers, as opposed to...
