Michael Giberson Streetwise Professor dubs F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom “An Intellectual Gateway Drug.” Craig Pirrong writes: “Amazingly, Hayek’s 60+ year old Road to Serfdom is the subject of contemporary political discussion even though in many ways it is about a world that disappeared long ago–and in, fact, never really existed, though Hayek feared that such a …
Michael Giberson I was fortunate to have a class with James Buchanan my first semester as a graduate student at George Mason University. Unfortunately, it was the year after he had been awarded the Nobel prize, and he was still doing a lot of traveling and speaking. He wasn’t around nearly enough to suit me …
Michael Giberson I don’t read Tom Friedman’s columns in the New York Times, but apparently Craig Pirrong does, and I read Pirrong’s Streetwise Professor blog, and Pirrong’s latest post on Friedman reminds me again why I don’t read Tom Friedman’s columns. At least I generally avoid Friedman except when someone else calls attention to a …
Michael Giberson Post-earthquake in New Zealand, a battle emerges over the best system for rebuilding: Supremo vs. the Invisible Hand. Supremo has its backers: [Construction economist John Jackson said:] Rebuilding should be led by a “supremo”, such as a senior military officer with engineering corps experience, as was chosen for Darwin, and New Orleans after Hurricane …
Supremo Vs. Invisible Hand: Battle over New Zealand Earthquake Recovery Approach Read More »
Michael Giberson In a post that actually isn’t about the “question marks swirling around high speed rail,” Eric Morris quotes approvingly a remark from Randal O’Toole, a big fan of trains and also a big critic of public subsidies for trains: “I don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize these preferences any more than if I liked …
A Post Which Isn’t About the Question Marks Swirling Around High Speed Rail Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Wow, Russ Roberts has a wonderful column in today’s Wall Street Journal about Hayek and the recent interest in his work (the link is subscriber-only, but if you Google for the article you should be able to get the whole thing to pull up from Opinion Journal). It’s an outstanding summary of why …
Russ Roberts on Hayek in the Wall Street Journal Read More »
Michael Giberson The New York Times ran an editorial on the election of Rand Paul called the “Limits of Libertarianism.” I haven’t been paying much attention to Paul’s campaign or related politics, so don’t comment on Paul’s views or the Times response to them. But I have to draw attention to for the purpose of publicly ridiculing …
Government, Slavery, Jim Crow, The New York Times Read More »
Michael Giberson The knowledge problem made the newspaper today – that’s Hayek’s concept of the knowledge problem, not the KP blog that Lynne and I operate. But since we appreciate the significance of Hayek’s insight on the mobilization of knowledge, it seems appropriate to draw attention to Glenn Reynold’s op-ed, “Progressives can’t get past the …
I Cringe when I See Hayek’s Knowledge Problem Wielded As a Rhetorical Club Read More »
Michael Giberson In a study encompassing several distinct populations, Joseph Henrich and collaborators conclude that both participation in markets and belief in a world religion promote fairness norms that facilitate emergence of large-scale societies. The study was described in a recent issue of The Economist: For the evolutionarily minded, the existence of fairness is a …
Michael Giberson At ThinkMarkets, Roger Koppl urges supporters of liberty to get into market design. In effect Koppl says: it isn’t especially useful to oppose the growth of government and hold high the beacon of freedom and prosperity, if there is no way to get from here to there. What is useful is finding a …
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