There is a peculiar moment in every argument when you realize you are wrong. It arrives quietly, like a guest you did not invite. Your stomach tightens. Your brain, that magnificent organ you trust to keep you alive, does something remarkable: it pretends the moment never happened. You keep arguing. You argue harder. You would […]
Why We’d Rather Fight a Neighbor Than Admit a Fact Read More »
There is something deeply uncomfortable about putting a price tag on moral outrage. Which is precisely why Gary Becker thought we should do it. Becker, the Nobel laureate who spent his career dragging economics into places it was not invited, had a talent for making people squirm. He applied cost benefit analysis to marriage, crime,
Why We Should Charge People to Protest: The Economics of Civil Disobedience Read More »
Most people assume democracy is the fairest system humans have invented. Markets, by contrast, get treated like a necessary evil. We tolerate them the way we tolerate a loud neighbor. Useful, maybe, but not exactly noble. Israel Kirzner would disagree. Not politely, either. Kirzner, an economist who spent decades at New York University, built a
Why Markets Are More Fair Than Democracy: The Kirznerian View Read More »
There is something deeply strange about a country that discovers oil and then watches its people get poorer. Not strange in the way a magic trick is strange, where you know something clever happened behind the curtain. Strange in the way a fire extinguisher that sprays gasoline is strange. The mechanism that should fix the
Why Resource-Rich Countries Stay Poor: The Modern Dutch Disease Re-examined Read More »
Most people think of liquidity as a simple idea. You either have cash or you do not. Your assets either sell quickly or they sit there gathering dust. But two of the twentieth century’s sharpest minds saw something far stranger lurking inside this concept. One was a mathematician turned philosopher. The other was an economist
Alfred North Whitehead vs. John Maynard Keynes: The Process View of Liquidity Read More »
There is a quiet sentence Gary Becker wrote decades ago that still hits harder than most thrillers. He argued that crime, for many people, is not a moral failure or a psychological mystery. It is a job application. A rational one. The unskilled worker who turns to theft is not necessarily broken. He is, in
Most people lock their doors at night. They install antivirus software on their laptops. They check the expiration date on milk before drinking it. But when someone hands them an idea, they swallow it whole without a second thought. Karl Popper found this bizarre. One of the twentieth century’s sharpest philosophers, Popper spent his life
Intellectual Self-Defense: Popper’s Guide to Spotting Manipulation Read More »
There is a thought experiment that most people refuse to take seriously. Not because it fails on logic, but because it attacks something almost sacred. The idea is simple: what if the government did not run the police? What if it did not run the fire department? What if these services, like your morning coffee
Privatize Everything: Why Even the Police and Fire Departments Should Be Competitive Read More »
There is a strange ritual in modern life that nobody talks about honestly. A person works for years, builds something real, earns their place, and then stands before the world expected to look slightly embarrassed about all of it. The apology does not have to be spoken. A sheepish smile will do. A quick mention
The Guilt of the High Achiever: Why Society Wants You to Apologize for Your Success Read More »
There is a tax nobody voted for, no legislature passed, and no court has ever struck down. It is levied at birth, collected daily, and its rates are set by the wandering eyes of strangers. Economists call it the beauty premium. The rest of us just call it life. Gary Becker spent his career dragging