TGIF: Benevolent Self-Interest

TGIF: Benevolent Self-Interest

by | Nov 14, 2025 | , , , , , ,

The most famous sentence in Adam Smith's 1776 treatise, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, appears in Book I, Chapter 2: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. It's a beautifully written sentence (except that he should have twice written "his" instead of "their"). He might have written, "It is not from the benevolence of producers that we expect consumer goods, but from their attending to their businesses." Ho hum. Who would have remembered it? More...

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Abolish the Corporation Tax and All Other Taxes on Investment

by | Nov 12, 2025 | , ,

Corporate taxes and other taxes on investment constitute double and sometimes triple taxation. That's more unjust than taxation of labor or consumption. Businesses can't pay taxes; only people can. But who pays business taxes need bear no relation to whom the lawmakers targeted. The corporate tax has been known to reduce wages and dividends (to retirees of moderate wealth) and indirectly to increase prices to consumers. How's that help anyone? Capital accumulation is what raises labor productivity and wages. Thus, taxes on capital steal from workers, among others. As economist Roy Cordato...

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TGIF: Envy, Ignorance, Barbarism Triumph in New York

TGIF: Envy, Ignorance, Barbarism Triumph in New York

by | Nov 7, 2025 | , , , , , ,

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's mayoral victory in New York City is a triumph of moral barbarism, economic illiteracy, illogic, and just plain envy. Mamdani's campaign had a double pitch: billionaires should not exist, and "the people" deserve free stuff. At first I thought his supporters did not understand the old free-market meme, TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Nature provides only raw materials, which are useless in their original state. Ingenuity turns them into resources. But then I realized that while Mamdani used the word free, he also said he would get...

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TGIF: Separating Powers

TGIF: Separating Powers

by | Oct 31, 2025 | , , ,

We may be sure that the "separation of powers" doctrine is of no interest to the vulgar egotist currently residing in the White House, which happens to be undergoing the most glorious renovation the world has ever known. Or so we hear. But it stands to reason that the doctrine is vital to personal liberty. No imagination is needed to understand what concentrated political power is likely to mean for the individual and society. The name most closely associated with the separation of powers is Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755), a judge, philosopher, and...

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TGIF: The Libertarian Apostle of Peace

TGIF: The Libertarian Apostle of Peace

by | Oct 24, 2025 | , , ,

With Donald Trump furiously, ineptly, and fraudulently campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, it may interest liberals—the classical variety, libertarians—to know that the first Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 1901, was shared by one of their own. This was a man who espoused the same political-economic philosophy as his fellow Frenchman Frédéric Bastiat and Englishman Richard Cobden. Its pillars were freedom, unrestricted trade, and peace. That man was Frédéric Passy (1822-1912). Passy shared the prize with Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross and originator of...

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TGIF: The Absurdity of Democracy

TGIF: The Absurdity of Democracy

by | Oct 17, 2025 | , , , , ,

If the continuing incompetence of Congress over passing a budget and reopening the U.S. government doesn't show the absurdity of unlimited representative republicanism, what could do so? Whether or not to extend COVID-era special subsidies for medical insurance appears to be the main issue, but other issues are undoubtedly involved. If it isn't one thing, it's another. That's politics. The problem is that the government has its hands in everything. That means a constituency exists for each thing the government does. If you want to upset and mobilize a group of people, call for an end to some...

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TGIF: Hooked on the State

TGIF: Hooked on the State

by | Oct 10, 2025 | , , ,

Since the government partial shutdown began, we've been seeing panicked headlines about states being denied federal money for promised or already-started energy and infrastructure projects. Other sorts of subsidies are also in jeopardy. You'd think that not getting money from Washington was the worst thing that could happen. Oh my goodness, federalism might be breaking out! Unfortunately, we can be sure that no restoration is in the works. We are not about to return to the long-gone world in which the national government had few powers and the people of the 50 states grappled with...

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TGIF: Free Movement Increases Wealth

TGIF: Free Movement Increases Wealth

by | Oct 3, 2025 | , , ,

In a recent interview with Nathan Goodman of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Professor Michael Clemens, a GMU specialist in migration economics, put forth "a strange and striking fact about the world economy." A lower-skilled person's location in the world can make a significant difference in how much wealth he creates, not just for himself but for society in general. According to Clemens, few people appreciate that, say, a poor shoeshiner in Haiti could earn far more money doing the same work in a wealthy American city because his customers, who are rich by world and...

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