By Donald J. Boudreaux Surprising myself, I write here about the murder of George Floyd. My surprise springs from my long-held belief that I, a professional economist who now specializes in studying trade and trade policy, likely have nothing useful to add to public discussions about race relations and police misconduct. It’s not that I have no opinions about these … [Read more...] about Protest Also Against Police Unions and Qualified Immunity
Donald Boudreaux
Creativity Is the Driving Force of the Market
By Donald J. Boudreaux No story in economics is as powerful as is Leonard Read’s 1958 I, Pencil. Encountering this story can completely change your understanding of society. Just as Adam Smith did 182 years earlier when contemplating an ordinary woolen coat, Read marveled at the vast amount of human knowledge, effort, and cooperation that are daily harnessed to make … [Read more...] about Creativity Is the Driving Force of the Market
There Is No Such Thing as “The People”
By Donald J. Boudreaux Among the most important advances in the social sciences of the 20th century is Kenneth Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. The full explanation of this theorem first appeared in Arrow’s 1951 book, Social Choice and Individual Values. As explanations go, this one is especially beautiful in its rigor, yet highly technical and inaccessible to the general … [Read more...] about There Is No Such Thing as “The People”
Flimsy Justifications to Restrict Your Freedom
By Donald J. Boudreaux When I was a boy my mother and father often put to me a version of a question that parents throughout the ages have put to their children: “If everybody jumped off of the Mississippi River Bridge, would you jump too?!” Of course, I was asked this rhetorical question whenever I took some inadvisable course of action and sought to excuse it on the … [Read more...] about Flimsy Justifications to Restrict Your Freedom