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F.A Hayek: Education Is an Obligation, Not a Right

Friedrich A. Hayek Is there a right to education? Even in today’s polarized political environment in the United States, the overwhelming majority of citizens think there is such a right, and many hold that it applies through the completion of college.1 Every one of the fifty state constitutions includes language providing for free public education, .. MORE

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Taxing the Rich: It’s Complicated

After months of debate, and substantial changes along the way, this summer Congress successfully enacted a landmark package of tax and spending cuts, a key component of Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” (HR 1) will reduce taxes by around $4.5 trillion while also cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in federal spending. It is .. MORE

Book Review, Kling's Corner

Medical Practice Without Consent

While informed consent and respect for autonomy govern how health care practitioners interact with their patients, this new ethos is absent when it comes to the government asserting authority over adults’ health decisions. The government dictates what kinds of health professionals adults may consult. It determines what medicines adults may purchase and under which circumstances .. MORE

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Economic Education

Two Economic Ideas That are True and Nontrivial

By David Henderson

Central Planning

Today’s Convergence of Political Systems

By Pierre Lemieux

Cryptocurrency

Stable/Genius: Stablecoins and Free Banking

By Tyler Watts

Property Rights

Federalism and Housing Policy

By Scott Sumner

Economics and Culture

The Future of Art with AI

By Jon Murphy

Industry Interviews: Individuals at Work

Learning to Think Like Someone Else (with David Marquet)

Economic History

My Weekly Reading for August 10, 2025

By David Henderson

Incentives

Interesting Facts About the Cocoa Market

By Pierre Lemieux

EconTalk

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econtalk-podcast

Learning to Think Like Someone Else (with David Marquet)

Former submarine commander David Marquet joins EconTalk’s Russ Roberts to explore how distancing–thinking like someone else, somewhere else, or sometime else–can unlock better choices in business and life. They talk about leadership without giving orders, how to empower teams, and what it means to see yourself as a coach rather than a boss. Along the way, they discuss .. MORE

econtalk-podcast

The Challenge of Covering the Most Important Story on Earth (with Matti Friedman)

Journalist Matti Friedman worked for the Jerusalem Bureau of the Associated Press from 2006 to 2011. Looking back at that experience, Friedman argues that little has changed in the journalism landscape. Listen as Friedman discusses with EconTalk host Russ Roberts the media’s obsession with Israel and how and why the media often sidelines facts in service of ideology, .. MORE

EconLog

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#ReadWithMe

We Have Never Been Woke Part 5: The Cause of Awokenings

As I mentioned in my last post, Musa al-Gharbi argues that the post-2011 Awokening – that is, the rise of social justice activism and the escalating adoption of social justice ideology among the symbolic capitalist class – was not an unprecedented event. He argues that Awokenings have occurred before and have taken largely similar form. .. MORE

Cryptocurrency

Stable/Genius: Stablecoins and Free Banking

President Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) into law on July 18th, promising to “cement American dominance of global finance and crypto technology.” In his post-signing speech, the president explained, “the GENIUS Act provides banks, businesses and financial institutions, a framework for issuing crypto assets backed one .. MORE

LIBERTY CLASSICS SERIES

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continued relevance of our classic titles.

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Book Titles

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Progress and Poverty

By Henry George

THE views herein set forth were in the main briefly stated in a pamphlet entitled “Our Land and Land Policy,” published in San Francisco in 1871. I then intended, as soon as I could, to present them more fully, but the opportunity did not for a long time occur. In the meanwhile I became even .. MORE

Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy

By William Leggett

Ten years after Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826, an outspoken young editor in New York City was reformulating and extending the Jeffersonian philosophy of equal rights. William Leggett, articulating his views in the columns of the New York Evening Post,Examiner, and Plaindealer, gained widespread recognition as the intellectual leader of the laissez-faire wing of Jacksonian .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Follies in the History of Economic Thought

By Jeremy Horpedahl

A Book Review of Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages, by Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod.1 Introduction What do you think would happen if suddenly beards and bachelorhood were taxed? Ridiculous, you say? Not so! In the later 17th century, Tsar Peter the Great instituted a beard tax to change .. MORE

Volksgemeinschaft: Hitler as Revolutionary

By Stephen Davies

A Book Review of Hitler: The Politics of Seduction, by Rainer Zitelmann.1 One could truly say that there is no end to books about Adolph Hitler. Every year brings new works to add to the library already in print. This despite there being what most regard as a definitive biography in the shape of Ian .. MORE

Conversations

VIDEO

A Conversation with Milton Friedman

Recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Milton Friedman (1912-2006) has long been recognized as one of our most important economic thinkers and a leader of the Chicago school of economics. He is the author of many books and articles in economics, including A Theory of the Consumption Function and A Monetary History .. MORE

VIDEO

A Conversation with Gary S. Becker

Gary Becker (1930-2014) was one of the most original and pathbreaking economists of modern times. His 1992 Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences was described as his “having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behaviour and interaction, including nonmarket behavior.” Becker’s early work on discrimination led to his further work .. MORE

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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

Economic Regulation, Government Policy

Corruption

In the world’s worst offending countries, corrupt government officials steal public money and collude with businesses to sell laws, rules, regulations, and government contracts. The World Bank reports that “higher levels of corruption are associated with lower per capita income” (World Bank 2001, p. 105). Corruption breeds poverty, and poverty kills. In other words, corruption .. MORE

Economic Systems, Economies Outside the United States, Schools of Economic Thought

Socialism

Socialism—defined as a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production—was the tragic failure of the twentieth century. Born of a commitment to remedy the economic and moral defects of capitalism, it has far surpassed capitalism in both economic malfunction and moral cruelty. Yet the idea and the ideal of socialism .. MORE

Economies Outside the United States, Government Policy, International Economics, Macroeconomics

Foreign Aid

Foreign aid as a form of capital flow is novel in both its magnitude and its global coverage. Though historical examples of countries paying “bribes” (see below) or “reparations” to others are numerous, the continuing large-scale transfer of capital from rich-country governments to those of poor countries is a post–World War II phenomenon. The origins .. 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 constitutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them.”

-Adam Smith Full Quote >>

All human action is speculative; my emphasis on the element of alertness in action has been intended to point out that, far from being numbed by the inescapable uncertainty of our world, men act upon their judgments of what opportunities have been left unexploited by others.

-Israel Kirzner Full Quote >>