Andy Weir – Artemis
A heist story set on a moon colony, by the author of The Martian. Plenty of smart-alecky humor, and an entertaining way to learn some science about gravity, vacuums, and explosives. There is also a surprising amount of economics content, ranging from private currency to rent-seeking to spontaneous order. Might be good supplemental reading for an undergrad-level econ or physics course.
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Posted in Books, Literature, Science
My CEI colleagues have put together a short video on the recent push to ramp up antitrust enforcement. Click here to watch it on YouTube.
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Posted in Antitrust, Uncategorized
Bas van der Vossen and Jason Brennan – In Defense of Openness: Why Global Freedom Is the Humane Solution to Global Poverty
Argued from a philosopher’s point of view, though both authors are economically literate. They argue that the most effective poverty-relief policies involve positive-sum interactions. A more open approach to trade, immigration, and entrepreneurship are the most important positive-sum policies, and they back them with strong moral and consequentialist arguments.
People have the right to make deals with each other, or to move somewhere else if they like. For a third party to get in the way and forcibly stop them requires a very strong reason. The burden of proof is on that third party.
Conservatives and nationalists offer few strong justifications for their force-happy trade and immigration policies. Progressives also come off poorly for preferring zero-sum redistribution policies even when positive-sum policies are readily available. Both authors argue instead for a more permissive, open, and liberal approach–liberal in its original, correct sense.
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Posted in Books, Development Economics, Economics, Immigration, Philosophy, Trade, Uncategorized
Barbara Tuchman – The Guns of August
A history of the first month of World War I, and the events leading up to it. Tuchman writes well and tells a good story, but more than anything this book re-taught me why I’m not much on military history.
War is what happens when something goes seriously wrong; it is the breakdown of society. Soldiers and generals are a bit like doctors in that they are trying to fix what’s wrong. But they’re more the type of doctor that treats a tuberculosis patient’s cough while leaving the root disease untouched. There is value in having some people study symptomatic relief, but treating the root problem does more good.
This is why I am more interested in culture and institutions than in pincer movements, multiple fronts, and the quarreling opinions of various generals. Why is often a much more useful and interesting question than what.
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Posted in Books, History, Uncategorized
Last week was low-drama by recent standards, but still had some important developments. The U.S. trade deficit set a record for the second year in a row, which fortunately has nothing to do with economic health one way or the other. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb resigned. Gottlieb is an outspoken opponent of e-cigarettes, which make it easier for smokers to quit; my colleague Michelle Minton has more on that issue. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also proposed breaking up large technology companies, which is a misguided idea for a number of reasons. Meanwhile, regulatory agencies issued new regulations ranging from sewage incineration to pecan reporting.
On to the data:
Highlights from last week’s new final regulations:
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in America
Tocqueville, a Frenchman, visited America for a period of nine months around 1830 and published this two-volume work after returning home. Tocqueville is incredibly insightful, which is why his book is often cited and occasionally read today, nearly two centuries later. He has a mostly sunny disposition and a generally liberal outlook (in the correct, classical sense of the word), but this book is not quite the love letter to America many make it out to be.
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Posted in Books, History, International, Philosophy, Political Animals, Uncategorized
John Tamny – The End of Work
John is a friend, former colleague, and occasional editor of mine. His enthusiasm and optimism are infectious. Rather than pushing papers across a desk or standing at an assembly line, every year there are more and more careers opening up for people passionate about sports, cooking, writing, the arts, and even video games. This is because growing mass prosperity makes such jobs possible. So long as government uses a relatively light approach to taxation and regulation, this process will continue. As general prosperity grows, so will the number of possible “passion jobs” that pay well enough to put food on the table.
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Posted in Books, Economics, Innovation, Uncategorized
Rosemary Sullivan – Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Alliluyeva was Stalin’s daughter, born in 1926, two years before he consolidated his power. Her childhood was about as warm as one would expect. Stalin had occasional tender moments, but was a distant father, not to mention a dictator. When Svetlana was six and a half, her mother committed suicide. One of her teenage love interests ended up in the gulag. Friends kept a wise distance during the 1937-38 Terror, fearing that an adverse word from her to her father could have consequences.
In 1967, after three divorces, two children, and a stint in India, she defected to the United States. She wrote two books, was a media sensation for a time, and earned a large sum of money from the royalties. After several moves, she married Wesley Peters, an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright who spent his summers in Wisconsin and wintered in an Arizona compound with, among other people, Wright’s controlling widow, who was also a Russian. That marriage produced a daughter as well as another divorce, and Svetlana lost most of her money.
She moved back to the east coast, then the UK for a time, moving almost annually. She even defected back the USSR in the 1980s, considered it a mistake, and went back to America. She spent her final years in Wisconsin, of all places, a few hours’ drive from where I grew up.
She seems to have had a melancholy spirit. Circumstances made her lonely for obvious reasons, especially while her father still lived, and for her entire life she was unable to settle anywhere or with anyone for very long. Whatever she was looking for in life, she seems not to have found it. She was also prone to sudden emotional outbursts, and had occasional bouts of paranoia similar to her father’s. While she was certainly not her father, she was still his daughter. Sullivan has painted an interesting portrait of an interesting person.
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Posted in Books, History, International, Uncategorized
Brad Stone – The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
More Amazon’s corporate history than Bezos’ biography, though it does discuss his life story and how he came to his approach to business and management, and what he hopes to do with his wealth. As an avid sci-fi fan, his interest in space exploration is more than skin deep, though his plans for his Deep Blue company are still unclear.
Lots of good stuff in here about innovation, competition, and the pluses and minuses of Bezos’ severe office culture and his unusual, and refreshing, emphasis on the very long term. Students of Schumpeterian creative destruction will find this book to be almost a case study.
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Posted in Books, Innovation, Uncategorized
George J. Stigler – Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist
Not a strict autobiography by the Nobel-winning Chicago economist, but this occasionally caustic essay collection showcases Stigler’s wit and sarcasm. It also reflects on academic life, which isn’t terribly interesting to this reader. But it stresses the importance of outside interests and reading good books, which are.
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Posted in Books, Economics, Uncategorized
Inertia Wins! 