March 2025 ISSUE

Article

Utopian Experiments and Three Morality Tales: Socialism in New Harmony, Indiana

By D. Eric Schansberg

[caption id="attachment_79185" align="alignnone" width="200"] New Harmony, Indiana[/caption] This year is the 200th anniversary of British industrialist Robert Owen's social experiments at New Harmony, Indiana—a utopian commune on 20,000 acres along the Wab...
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Article

An Economic Approach to Homer’s Odyssey: Part III

By Tyler Cowen

Polities and Economics In the first article of this series, I outlined what an economic approach to reading Homer's epic, The Odyssey,1 might look like. I then turned to Homer's treatment of comparative political regimes in the second article. In this final essa...
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Book Review

The Human Moral Mind

By Arnold Kling

Experiments consistently reveal that our moral judgments are driven by perceptions of harm. We condemn acts based on how much they seem to victimize someone vulnerable. —Kurt Gray, Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Gr...
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Article

Productivity and the Worth of Work in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

By Richard Gunderman

Leo Tolstoy. This article was inspired by a recent Virtual Reading Group on Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, led by Richard Gunderman. Learn more about our Virtual Reading Groups at the Online Library of Liberty. Productivity is a measure of efficiency, tending to...
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Display by author's last name begining with: J

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Anthony de Jasay

There Are No Natural Rights

Thinking Straight Jan 1 2018

One Man, One Vote and All its Costs

Thinking Straight Dec 4 2017

Vanity Fair

Thinking Straight Nov 6 2017

Could Kim Jong-un Really Mean It?

Thinking Straight Oct 2 2017

For a Better Life in the Currency Union

Thinking Straight Sep 4 2017

The Four Who Would Direct the World

Thinking Straight Aug 7 2017

America First, and What It Might Cost

Thinking Straight Jul 3 2017

If Immigration to America and Europe No Longer Pays

Thinking Straight Jun 5 2017

Thinking About the Euro-bond

Thinking Straight May 1 2017

Living With Mutually Assured Destruction

Thinking Straight Apr 3 2017

Trade Wars Have No Winners, Only Losers

Thinking Straight Mar 6 2017

The Free Movement of Labour: What Will It Signify?

Thinking Straight Feb 6 2017

Catching Up: Could We Have More Growth?

Thinking Straight Jan 2 2017

Backwardation Economy

Thinking Straight Dec 5 2016

Vladimir Putin: Victories and a Heavy Defeat

Thinking Straight Nov 7 2016

For an Ever Closer Union

Thinking Straight Oct 3 2016

Advancing Stagnation, Invisible Richness

Thinking Straight Sep 5 2016

A Populist Referendum and the Price of Being Single

Thinking Straight Aug 1 2016

Profit Maximization: A Much Abused Doctrine

Thinking Straight Jul 4 2016

"Che" Guevara in the Vatican, Part II

Thinking Straight Jun 6 2016

"Che" Guevara in the Vatican

Thinking Straight May 2 2016

Is Leviathan Required for a Peaceful Order?

Thinking Straight Mar 7 2016

Terrorist Winds

Thinking Straight Feb 1 2016

Can Liberalism Survive in Democracy?

Thinking Straight Dec 7 2015

Changing the Continent?

Thinking Straight Nov 2 2015

Freedom and Duties, the Uninvited Guests

Thinking Straight Oct 5 2015

The Evil Bogey of Secular Stagnation

Thinking Straight Jun 8 2015

Austerity, Growth, and 'The Tap'

Thinking Straight May 4 2015

Irrelevant Inequalities, Part II: Economics-Not at Its Best

Thinking Straight Apr 6 2015

Irrelevant Inequalities, Part I: God Has Created All Men Equal. Or Has He?

Thinking Straight Mar 2 2015

Russia Fails Once Again: Putin Must Punch Above His Weight

Thinking Straight Feb 2 2015

The Sick Man of Europe: Afraid to Get Well

Thinking Straight Jan 5 2015

Paved With Good Intentions Part II. Regulatory Zeal Does It

Thinking Straight Dec 1 2014

Paved With Good Intentions Part I. The Curse of Job Protection

Thinking Straight Nov 3 2014

How Many Cheers for Classical Liberalism?

Thinking Straight Oct 6 2014

Double-Counting: Stop It, Please!

Thinking Straight Sep 1 2014

Distributive Justice, Wet Rain

Thinking Straight Aug 4 2014

The Python That Eats Itself by the Tail: A Self-Contradictory Theory of Capitalism

Thinking Straight Jul 7 2014

Coronation, Social Contract and All That

Reflections from Europe Jun 2 2014

Having It Is Sinful

Reflections from Europe May 5 2014

Two Horses, Four Grooms

Reflections from Europe Apr 7 2014

Two Leaning Towers

Reflections from Europe Mar 3 2014

Secular Stagnation: Why and Why Not?

Reflections from Europe Feb 3 2014

Property or Property "Rights"

Reflections from Europe Jan 6 2014

Irresistible Immigration: The Lampedusa Dilemma

Reflections from Europe Dec 3 2013

More Euro-Fantasy

Reflections from Europe Nov 4 2013

From Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves

Reflections from Europe Oct 7 2013

The Charms of Deferred Cost

Reflections from Europe Sep 2 2013

Kicking Own-Goals in Russia

Reflections from Europe Aug 5 2013

Helicopter Money and Stone-Age Banking

Reflections from Europe Jul 1 2013

Those Selfish Germans

Reflections from Europe Jun 3 2013

Diversity Does It

Reflections from Europe May 6 2013

Presumptions Versus Good Ideas

Reflections from Europe Apr 1 2013

A Triangular Europe: Three Incompatible Conceptions

Reflections from Europe Mar 4 2013

One Size Fits All, But Not Well: Collective Bargaining Conceals and May Waste a Rich Source of Productivity

Reflections from Europe Feb 4 2013

The Speculator's Bootstrap and the Efficient Market

Reflections from Europe Jan 7 2013

Collective Choice at Work

Reflections from Europe Dec 3 2012

Russia's Socialist Heritage

Reflections from Europe Nov 5 2012

The Price of Everything

Reflections from Europe Oct 1 2012

Instinctive Blunders: Job Protection and Redistribution

Reflections from Europe Sep 3 2012

Enough Folly is Enough

Reflections from Europe Aug 6 2012

Two Ways, But Where To?

Reflections from Europe Jul 2 2012

We All Prefer Growth to Austerity

Reflections from Europe Jun 4 2012

Class War by Judo

Reflections from Europe May 7 2012

Euramerica: A Safety-First Economy

Reflections from Europe Apr 2 2012

The Platinum Rule

Reflections from Europe Mar 5 2012

Is S & P a WMD?

Reflections from Europe Feb 6 2012

Finance in Parrot Talk, Part III

Reflections from Europe Jan 2 2012

Finance in Parrot Talk, Part II

Reflections from Europe Dec 5 2011

Finance in Parrot Talk, Part I

Reflections from Europe Nov 7 2011

Eurozone: It Seemed a Good Idea At the Time

Reflections from Europe Oct 3 2011

Can Sovereign Borrowing Be a Criminal Offence?

Reflections from Europe Sep 5 2011

Corruption, Parasitism, and the Abuse of Agency

Reflections from Europe Aug 1 2011

The Archbishop and the Accountants

Reflections from Europe Jul 12 2011

What Became of the Liquidity Trap?

Reflections from Europe Jun 6 2011

Our Cherished Optimum Currency Area: Its Trials and Tribulations

Reflections from Europe May 2 2011

The Millstones of Egalitarianism, Part II. Ropemanship, or the Morality of Distributions

Reflections from Europe Apr 4 2011

The Millstones of Egalitarianism, Part I. Distributionism By Facts-of-Life

Reflections from Europe Mar 7 2011

The Foolish Quest for Stability

Reflections from Europe Feb 7 2011

Negative Productivity

Reflections from Europe Jan 13 2011

Micro, Macro and Fantasy Economics

Reflections from Europe Dec 6 2010

The Best of the Worst: What Price Democracy

Reflections from Europe Nov 1 2010

Bank Debt, Sovereign Debt and the Dogs That Did Not Bark

Reflections from Europe Oct 4 2010

Two Cheers For Fiscal Austerity: Part II.

Reflections from Europe Sep 6 2010

Two Cheers For Fiscal Austerity: Part I.

Reflections from Europe Aug 2 2010

Is Society a Great Big Insurance Company?

Reflections from Europe Jul 5 2010

Is Society a Great Big Credit Card? Part II.

Reflections from Europe Jun 7 2010

Is Society a Great Big Credit Card? Part I.

Reflections from Europe May 3 2010

Come and Get Caught in My Trap

Reflections from Europe Apr 5 2010

Stone-Age Banking, Anti-Speculation and Rescuing the Euro

Reflections from Europe Mar 1 2010

Weeding Out the "Socially Not Useful"

Reflections from Europe Feb 1 2010

Ned Ludd, Handloom Weaving, and Franco-German Moral Banking

Reflections from Europe Jan 4 2010

They Wanted a New Order

Reflections from Europe Dec 7 2009

Who Is Afraid of the National Debt?

Reflections from Europe Nov 2 2009

Europeans Know Better: The Atlantic Cleavage on Financial Reform

Reflections from Europe Oct 5 2009

Thank Heaven for an Inefficient Market: A Tale of Zombies and Speculators

Reflections from Europe Sep 7 2009

A Fiscal Curb To Tame the State?

Reflections from Europe Aug 3 2009

Greed, Need, Risk and Regulation

Reflections from Europe Jul 6 2009

In Fantasyland: The Stressless Economy

Reflections from Latin America Jun 1 2009

Butcher, Brewer, Baker, Banker: All Must Work by the Golden Rule

Reflections from Europe May 4 2009

Equal Poverty, Unequal Affluence

Reflections from Europe Apr 6 2009

The Fat Cats, the Underdogs, and Social Justice

Reflections from Europe Mar 2 2009

Open Season on the Capitalist Free-for-All

Reflections from Europe Feb 2 2009

To Spend or Not to Spend?

Reflections from Europe Jan 5 2009

Trudging Down the Third Way

An Economist Looks at Europe Dec 1 2008

Cheap Talk: A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Asset Values, Expectations and the Apocalypse

An Economist Looks at Europe Oct 21 2008

Oil, Gas and Bluster

An Economist Looks at Europe Oct 6 2008

Incomes: Equalizing or Churning?

An Economist Looks at Europe Sep 5 2008

Topping Up Welfare

An Economist Looks at Europe Aug 4 2008

The Bootstrap Theory of the Oil Price

An Economist Looks at Europe Jul 7 2008

When Is a Change a Good Thing?

Reflections from Europe Jun 2 2008

A Trillion-Dollar "Catastrophe"?

An Economist Looks at Europe May 5 2008

The Use and Abuse of Taxes and Tax Havens

An Economist Looks at Europe Apr 7 2008

Economics Textbooks: Teaching to Despise

Reflections from Europe Mar 3 2008

The Demise of GDP Is Premature

An Economist Looks at Europe Feb 4 2008

Solvency and Liquidity: Some Financial "Crises" Are More Critical Than Others

Reflections from Europe Jan 7 2008

A Bill of Rights Europe Did Not Need

Reflections from Europe Dec 3 2007

The Political Economy of Force-Feeding

Reflections from Europe Nov 5 2007

Europe: More Secular and More Islamist

Reflections from Europe Oct 1 2007

Misbehaviour, Punishment, Prosperity. Part II. The Soviet Legacy

Reflections from Europe Sep 3 2007

Misbehaviour, Punishment, Prosperity. Part I. The Statist Legacy

Reflections from Europe Aug 6 2007

Low Pay

Reflections from Europe Jul 2 2007

When the Economy Needs Morals

Reflections from Europe Jun 14 2007

The French Tragicomedy

Reflections from Europe Apr 2 2007

The Capitalism They Hate. Part II. Indecent Earnings

Reflections from Europe Mar 5 2007

The Capitalism They Hate. Part I. The Inequality Machine

Reflections from Europe Feb 5 2007

Russia Hopping Along on Clay Feet

An Economist Looks at Europe Jan 8 2007

Treasure Island

An Economist Looks at Europe Dec 4 2006

The Failure of Market Failure. Part II. The Public Goods Dilemma

Reflections from Europe Nov 6 2006

The Failure of Market Failure. Part I. The Problem of Contract Enforcement

Reflections from Europe Oct 2 2006

The Yakoubovich Syndrome, or Lies, Damn Lies and Economic Policy

An Economist Looks at Europe Sep 4 2006

Immigration: What is the Liberal Stand?

An Economist Looks at Europe Aug 7 2006

Russia and the New Europe: Growing Apart

An Economist Looks at Europe Jul 7 2006

Striving to Get Richer and Poorer

Reflections from Europe Jun 5 2006

Paternalism and Employment

An Economist Looks at Europe May 1 2006

Stamp Your Feet and Demand a Fair Deal

An Economist Looks at Europe Apr 3 2006

Hostile to Whom? "Economic Patriotism" To Resist "Market Dictatorship"

An Economist Looks at Europe Mar 6 2006

Winning Policy Battles, but Losing the War Against Economic Realities

An Economist Looks at Europe Feb 6 2006

Urban Riots: How the French Social Model Could Self-Destruct

An Economist Looks at Europe Jan 9 2006

Turkey and the E.U. Club

Reflections from Europe Dec 5 2005

Some Bad News Could Be Good News

Reflections from Europe Nov 7 2005

Are High Oil Prices a Form of Exploitation?

Reflections from Europe Oct 3 2005

Paying Ourselves More of Their Money

Thinking Straight Sep 8 2005

The Instability of the Welfare State

Thinking Straight Aug 1 2005

What Now for "Europe"? Why the People Failed Their Masters

Reflections from Europe Jul 4 2005

Socio-Masochism: How Germany and France, the Sick Men of Europe, Torture Themselves

Reflections from Europe Jun 6 2005

Trying the Free Market. Part II. Unacceptable

Thinking Straight May 2 2005

Trying the Free Market. Part I. Presumed Guilty

Thinking Straight Apr 4 2005

A War of White Hats and Black Hats: A War of Attrition between Economic Reality and Political Dreams

Reflections from Europe Mar 7 2005

The Future of Europe: A Giant Free Trade Area or a Political Counterweight to America?

Reflections from Europe Feb 7 2005

The Seen and the Unseen. Part II. The Costly Mistake of Ignoring Opportunity Cost

Thinking Straight Jan 10 2005

The Seen and the Unseen. Part I. On the Economics of Protecting Employment

Reflections from Europe Dec 6 2004

"Globalisation" and Its Critics: Mutual Gain vs. Cloud Cuckoo Land

Reflections from Europe Nov 1 2004

Weather Forecast: A Brightening of the Economic Skies over Brussels?

Reflections from Europe Oct 4 2004

The Doctrine of "Unequal Exchange": The Last Refuge of Modern Socialism?

Thinking Straight Sep 6 2004

"Bread and Circuses" in the Modern Welfare State: Is the Worm Finally Turning?

Reflections from Europe Aug 2 2004

Jogging, Not Racing: European Cross-Currents and the Federalist Drift

Reflections from Europe Jul 5 2004

Economic Theories and Social Justice. Part II. Who Minds the Gap?

Reflections from Europe Jun 7 2004

Economic Theories and Social Justice. Part I. Risk, Value, and Externality

Reflections from Europe May 3 2004

Third Time Lucky in Russia: Can Putin Build a Real Economy from Oil and Rigour?

Reflections from Europe Apr 5 2004

Some Democratic Economics: If We Pay the Piper, Whose Tune Will He Play?

Reflections from Europe Mar 1 2004

The Things Labour Unions Are Up To: (Promoting general prosperity is not one of them)

Reflections from Europe Feb 12 2004

A Tadpole Constitution. Part II. Majority Rule by Any Other Name

Reflections from Europe Jan 7 2004

A Tadpole Constitution. Part I. How Confederacy Could Turn into a Federal Superstate

Reflections from Europe Dec 1 2003

Shall We Borrow from the Children?

Reflections from Europe Nov 3 2003

Free-Riding on the Euro

Reflections from Europe Sep 17 2003

Property and its Enemies. Part III. How to Get a Free Lunch? Just Apply for It.

Reflections from Europe Sep 1 2003

Property and its Enemies. Part II. Is Ownership a Myth?

Reflections from Europe Aug 4 2003

Property and its Enemies. Part I. "Design Faults" in Locke's Theory of Property Taint Ownership with Guilt

Reflections from Europe Aug 4 2003

Capitalism and Virtue: Politicians Do Not Understand the Economy, But Do Managers?

Reflections from Europe Jun 2 2003

Float or Sink? The Millstone of the "Social Market" in Germany

Reflections from Europe May 15 2003

More Nonsense on Stilts: Mr. Bentham Is At It Again

Reflections from Europe Apr 24 2003

Turkey Knocking on Europe's Door

Reflections from Europe Apr 7 2003

What Price Pride? On the Hidden Costs of Economic Illiteracy

Reflections from Europe Apr 7 2003

The Sins of the Fathers and the Sins of the Sons: Economic Consequences of a United States of Europe

Reflections from Europe Mar 3 2003

Thirty-five Hours

Thinking Straight Jul 15 2002

Your Dog Owns Your House

Thinking Straight Apr 22 2002