Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

The Vulnerable Capitalist

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 14, 2024 | Blog, Economics

"Popular literature attributes enormous 'power' to the capitalist and considers his owning a mass of capital goods as of enormous significance, giving him a great advantage over other people in the economy. We see, however, that this is far from the case; indeed, the opposite may well be true. For the capitalist has already saved from possible consumption and hired the services of factors to produce his capital goods. The owners of these factors have the money already for which they otherwise would have had to save and wait (and bear uncertainty), while the capitalist has only a mass of...

TGIF: “Corporate” Is Not a Four-Letter Word

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 13, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, History, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

I rise today to protest the widespread and malicious use of the adjective corporate as a synonym for evil, corrupt, exploitative, or any number of other pejoratives. As a descriptor, corporate merely says that an association that makes or sells goods for profit is publicly registered as a corporation. (Nonprofits can be corporations too.) This distinguishes the association from sole proprietorships and partnerships. That in turn means the participants in the association have agreed contractually to do business and raise capital in particular ways. Its ownership shares are readily tradeable;...

More Mises on the Market

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 13, 2024 | Uncategorized

"The capitalists, the enterprisers, and the farmers are instrumental in the conduct of economic affairs. They are at the helm and steer the ship. But they are not free to shape its course. They are not supreme, they are steersmen only, bound to obey unconditionally the captain’s orders. The captain is the consumer. "Neither the capitalists nor the entrepreneurs nor the farmers determine what has to be produced. The consumers do that. The producers do not produce for their own consumption but for the market. They are intent on selling their products. If the consumers do not buy the goods...

Natural Economic Law Can’t Be Repealed

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 12, 2024 | Blog, Economics

If the government restricts supply and subsidizes demand, out-of-control prices, resource shortages, and unpleasant ad hoc coping restrictions will follow. That is the natural (economic) law. The government cannot repeal it. But it can stop its attempt to plan.

The Health-Care Nirvana Fallacy

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 11, 2024 | Blog, Economics

Someone explain how coercive centralized bureaucratic control of medical decision-making and the purse can beat the decentralized free market with its undistorted price system. The government has many things besides medical care it wants to spend tax money on, and seemingly free medical care leads to unlimited, unmanageable consumer demand for services. What then? Will the bureaucrats never say NO to many people who need or say they need care? Where will the money come from? Will there not be intolerably long and life-threatening queues for exams, tests, and surgeries? Will doctors work for...

Time to Separate Medicine and State

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 10, 2024 | Blog, Economics

The "progressive" coverage of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder has an unspoken premise: namely, that we could have had a system in which medical care was instantly superabundant and free for everyone. There is no such system. We live in a world of scarcity. Socialized medical systems limit or deny care because of resource and government-budgetary constraints, and they impose high and even lethal costs through long waits for tests, surgeries, etc. Our government-saturated system is a nightmare, to be sure, but more government control would make things even worse, as Obamacare...

No Need for DOGE

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 10, 2024 | Blog

We don't need a Department (sic) of Government Efficiency. (It's a nongovernment thing.) We need a "Department" of What the Hell Should the Government Be Doing in the First Place? Efficiency implies that you know the objective of a course of action and want to avoid or minimize waste in achieving it. What is the objective of government? We can't judge its efficiency if we don't know its objective.

We Can’t Consume Our Way to Prosperity

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 9, 2024 | Blog, Economics

Once upon a time, John Stuart Mill could write these words truthfully ("Of the Influence of Consumption on Production," 1844): It is no longer supposed that you benefit the producer by taking his money, provided you give it to him again in exchange for his goods. He was talking, of course, about government tax-transfer programs intended to stimulate employment by subsidizing consumption. We cannot say this today.