"[I]t is evident ... that the man, who first made himself clothes and built himself a cabin, supplied himself with things which he did not much want, since he had lived without them till then; and why should he not have been able to support in his riper years, the...
consumption
We Can’t Consume Our Way to Prosperity
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...
TGIF: Supply Precedes Demand
"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production." —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776 "In the market economy the consumers are supreme. Their buying and their abstention from buying ultimately determine what the entrepreneurs produce and in what...
Economics in One Other Lesson
"The number one principle of economics...: the secret of mass consumption is mass production.... What about distribution? Here's what we know from all of human history, all of economic history. Any large increase in production is widely shared. There's no such thing...
Law of the Jungle vs. Law of the Market
In the jungle, consumers compete, tooth and claw, with each other for scarce food. In the market, producers compete, peacefully, with each other, producing abundance for consumers. In the jungle, the rule is: eat or be eaten. In the market, it is: serve so that you...
TGIF: Is Socialism Good in Theory?
This is an expanded version of something I wrote for The Freeman, October 2003, during my tenure as the editor. Socialism has been mortally discredited on economic grounds, thanks to Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and history. But for many people it has not been...
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Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine
Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.” The slogan became so overused that people began to ask the obvious question: Why do they protest so much? In Provoked: How...
Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War
Domestic Imperialism: Nine Reasons I Left Progressivism
Imagine the Catholic Church (or any person or group of people) doing what the government does every day: Everyone who doesn’t give the Catholic Church 25% of his annual income every year will be put in jail. If he resists the Jesuit officer, the officer has the right...