If you've overlooked A Bug's Life, you've bypassed one of the most uplifting films ever crafted. This animated triumph ranks among the most profound celebrations of libertarian principles on screen, championing the creative spark that drives human progress. It's perhaps no coincidence the film debuted in that innovative year of 1998, the same year as the founding of Google and PayPal, and the launch of the Apple iMac. Read More ›
What underpins this understanding of economics is what George Gilder calls the "materialist superstition." From the capitalism of Adam Smith and David Ricardo to the socialism of Karl Marx, classical economics to socialist economics rest on the assumed pillar of Newtonian determinism and static materialism. There is also only so much matter to go around, the materialist superstition has us believe, therefore, no amount of incentives and technological innovation can avoid the fact that we will run out of material goods. Read More ›
Kevin Hoover suggests that William Nordhaus relied on the labor theory of value in his paper on light (Letters, April 24). Yet Nordhaus actually used knowledge, not labor. He offered a method to measure innovation: the discovery and sharing of valuable new knowledge. Nordhaus measured the amount of knowledge per unit of time and observed that knowledge about light was growing exponentially, surpassing traditional measures of economic development. It is the time price over time that truly deserves our attention. Read More ›
Mark Perry does a great chart that illustrates the relative changes in the nominal prices of a variety of products and services. What is the difference between growing abundance and growing scarcity? In a word, government. Read More ›
Escaping grinding deprivation has been the aspiration of humanity since the dawn of time. Now that many of the planet’s peoples are blessed with sufficient means of survival — and some with plenty — a trendy narrative threatens to turn the dream into a nightmare. Read More ›
The quantity of things is important, but it’s the value of things that count. And value can change as fast as people can change their minds. Read More ›
