Tag: Prof. Don Boudreaux

Notable Quote – It’s Unfortunate That “Spontaneous Order” Isn’t Better Recognized

January 20, 2023 Skip

The first peculiarity of a spontaneous order is that by using its ordering forces (the regularity of the conduct of its members) we can achieve an order of a much more complex set of facts than we could ever by deliberate arrangement, but that, while availing ourselves of this possibility of inducing an order of … Read more

“Mindless and Mortifying Covid Theater”

December 13, 2021 Skip

All of you here know that I frequent Cafe Hayek. This time, one of the proprietors, Prof. Don Boudreaux (and principle writer), has a marvelous rant after visiting Strathmore (??) to point out the idiocy of the Ruling Classes on The Jab and the Mask and asks the question “why are you really doing this?”

Notable Quote – I Have to Keep Saying This Because So Many Haven’t Learned It

May 15, 2021 Skip

An objective look at the limitation of our knowledge – how difficult is it to know whether we are making good decisions even in our own lives, let alone in those of anyone else? – reveals that in fact we are typically in no position to judge what is good for others.

Notable Quote – At Some Point, Govt Regulations Become A “Taking,” Right?

March 20, 2021 Skip

A Twofer! First: “Even the failure and disintegration of socialism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has not led to a clear response to the next question: if government ownership of the means of production is so bad, why is government regulation of the private means of production so good?”

Notable Quote – more “wise” men than this high school student need “wising up”

August 4, 2020 Skip

There are many newly “upraised” Bernie-Bro Socialists in positions of power that believe they can easily manage and control entire economies without the use of Totalitarianism.

THIS is Delayed Gratification!

July 30, 2020 Skip

One of my (and should be EVERYONE’S!) pet peeves is the Left’s utter denigration of delayed gratification. The sense of putting off immediate desires for better outcomes in the future.

Notable Quote – Adam Smith

July 23, 2020 Skip

The person who employs his stock in maintaining labour, necessarily wishes to employ it in such a manner as to produce as great a quantity of work as possible. He endeavours, therefore, both to make among his workmen the most proper distribution of employment, and to furnish them with the best machines which he can … Read more

Notable Quote – why do we trust public officials as if they were non-partisan?

July 22, 2020 Skip

These People are politically driven. Even if (contrary to fact) there were a scientifically determinable single best course of government action in this crisis, what reason have These People given us to believe that they are capable of finding that course and of understanding it? And even if These People could find and understand this scientifically ‘best’ course of … Read more

Notable Quote – Prof. Don Boudreaux

June 27, 2020 Skip

Emphasis mine: Industrial policy is the replacement of price-guided resource-allocation patterns with commands issued by politicians and their hirelings. But as Hayek points out, it is impossible for politicians and their hirelings to possess any of the “knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place” that must be known if the resulting use of … Read more

Notable Quote – Prof. Don Boudreaux

June 9, 2020 Skip

…This system of prices and wages conveys reasonably reliable information to each individual about the consequences that will be experienced not only by her, but also by other people – most of them complete strangers – as a result of her choice of how to use her resources.

Notable Quote – George Will, Prof. Don Boudreaux

June 1, 2020 Skip

Can a federal government that acknowledges no limits to its scope, and that responds promiscuously to the multiplying appetites of proliferating factions, make choices that serve the society’s long-term interests? The answer, based on the avalanche of evidence from current governance, is an emphatic “no.” The evidence is in the rise of the administrative state … Read more

Notable Quote – Dr. Don Boudreaux

May 24, 2020 Skip

Freedom of exchange and production within a regime of private property rights and freedom of contract harnesses self-interest to the public good. Admiration and endorsement of free markets is not – contrary to much uninformed commentary – admiration and endorsement of greed or materialism. It is, instead, the reflection of an acceptance of the reality … Read more

Notable Quote – Jim Buchanan

April 6, 2020 Skip

Frank Knight could never have joined those of the self-selected elite who, in idea or practice, seek to plan, steer, or direct the lives of those who are excluded. He was a classical liberal, not because he predicted that only with widespread individual liberty would desired results be generated, but because the liberal order is … Read more

Notable Quote – George Will

April 4, 2020April 4, 2020 Skip

[Welfare] states presuppose economic dynamism sufficient to generate investments, job creation, corporate profits, and individuals’ incomes from which come tax revenues needed to fund entitlements. But welfare states produce in citizens an entitlement mentality and a low pain threshold. That mentality inflames appetites for more entitlements, broadly construed to include all government benefits and protections … Read more

Notable Quote – a Twofer

March 14, 2020 Skip

The market has never tried to change human nature, and guardians of the market have never considered using the market to change human nature. Instead, precisely because human nature cannot be changed, the market economy exists, which is also the reason the market economy is necessary: It causes human actions to better conform to the … Read more

Notable Quote – Prof. Don Boudreaux

January 15, 2020 Skip

I’m tired of hearing that anyone who refuses to embrace every proposal to tax carbon and to otherwise hamper markets in the name of ‘addressing’ climate change is an unscientific ideologue. Of course, some such people are, but it follows neither that every such person is, nor that the embrace of proposals to tax carbon … Read more

Notable Quote – EXACTLY my complaint against the Gilford Selectmen

January 6, 2020 Skip

Emphasis mine: Careful observers often and correctly note that, for many of its adherents, environmentalism is a religion. Too many environmentalists disregard inconvenient truths that would undermine their faith that calamities are percolating just over the horizon. It might well be that humans’ “footprint” on the Earth is larger than ever; it might even be … Read more

Notable Quote – Prof. Don Boudreaux

December 16, 2019December 16, 2019 Skip

… I offer here a handy guide to common misconceptions about free-market “economic orthodoxy” – or to use a less-loaded term, “market economics.” – Market economics does not hold that money is all that matters. Quite the contrary. Competent economists understand better than most people that individuals have a large scope for, and a deep interest in, … Read more

Notable Quote – Prof. Don Boudreaux

December 14, 2019December 14, 2019 Skip

He [J.D. Rockefeller, Sr.] was also insistent that his massive philanthropy paled in importance beside the good he had done in creating jobs and furnishing affordable kerosene at Standard Oil. DBx: Rockefeller was correct. Wealth cannot be philanthropically given away unless it is first created. Nor can wealth be “redistributed” by the state unless it … Read more

Notable Quote – George Will and Prof. Don Boudreaux

July 19, 2019 Skip

Modernity’s gift has been the ability and determination to sharply delineate private and public spheres, with the private being the zone of individual sovereignty. It is the realm of the household, the family, and the work that sustains both. This is the basis of the proposition that the Constitution of the first consciously modern nation, … Read more