public choice

Nancy MacLean’s postmodern rhetorical strategy

3 Comments / Philosophy /

[Republished from The Foundation for Economic Education.] Nancy MacLean has written a postmodernist book, while her libertarian critics are writing modernist responses. The critics point out the free-wheeling, fact-free, and conspiracy-tinged narrative MacLean has constructed, and they argue that logically her account does not fit the reality of James Buchanan’s life and writings. All good […]

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Education’s “Public Choice” Dynamic

Leave a Comment / Education /

Arguments for government involvement in education are many. They include the views that many parents cannot afford to educate their children, that private philanthropy cannot make up the deficit, that too many parents don’t care enough about education, and more. At the same time, government involvement in education has risks: * Less parental control over

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Unauthorized book marketing — News Report

4 Comments / Politics /

Imagine the following news report: ‘Children’s Publishing, Inc., has reached a $105 million settlement with several U.S. states over the unlawful market of its history books. The book publishing company did not admit wrongdoing but confirmed its agreement with 44 states and the U.S. Department of Education. “The settlement requires CPI to pay a penalty

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Seminar: Philosophy and the Evolution of the Mixed Economy

2 Comments / History of Philosophy, Literature, Philosophy /

One of my talks at Francisco Marroquín University was on making sense of our mixed economy–an unwieldy combination of market and socialist elements. The 28-minute talk integrates themes from my intellectual heroes–Smith, Mill, Mises, Hayek, Rand, Popper, Friedman, Buchanan, and Tullock–and connects market economics, politics, ethics, history, and public choice to explaining our semi-coherent mixed

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Argentina, Hong Kong, and the psychology of belief

3 Comments / Business Ethics, Economics, Politics /

Over the last 80 years, the world rankings of Hong Kong and Argentina: Resource-poor Hong Kong’s relatively laissez-faire free market has taken it from poverty to riches. Resource-rich Argentina’s experiments in statism have taken it from prosperity to decline and semi-functionality. In this Wall Street Journal/Heritage ranking, Hong Kong is currently first in the world

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