Exit, Voice, and Liberty

There’s been some interesting, and heated, debate in the libertarian blogosphere about the importance of democracy to freedom. Will Wilkinson suggests that since charter cities (and presumably seasteads) are undemocratic, they might allow rulers of authoritarian regimes to reap the benefits of high economic growth without giving their subjects “real freedom.” I think Will’s point [...]

Coherence versus Political Reality

Arnold Kling tries to categorize current attitudes towards markets and state intervention as combinations of three points on an ideological triangle; Libertarian, Conservative, and Progressive: 1. Point L, where you believe that markets are effective at processing information and solving problems. This position is to take a radically pro-market view, and to let markets fix [...]

Customer-Owned Protection Agencies

I suggested yesterday that protection agencies which credibly commit to not joining any nascent cartel are likely to attract more customers than those which don’t, potentially nullifying Cowen and Sutter’s critique of market anarchism. One obvious possibility is customer ownership of protection agencies. Cowen makes this suggestion in the final paragraph of his 1992 paper: [...]

Economists and Sociologists

Fabio Rojas at Orgtheory asks: if sociology sucks, why do economists keep doing it? He cites Weber, Parsons, Becker, Levitt, Akerlof, and Caplan as examples of economists who “regularly dine at our restaraunt,” yet constantly complain about the service. I’d add Douglass North, Timur Kuran, and many of the contemporary Austrian School to the list of [...]

Moral Argument and Political Force

I agree heartily with this from Wendy McElroy: One danger of arguing for or against a position is that everyone thinks you are saying, “there ought to be a law.” Take the issue of discrimination on the basis of sex or gender as an example. If you argue against it, people assume you want to [...]

Preference Falsification and Support for Gay Marriage

Andrew Gelman is stunned that support for gay marriage has increased more in states with already liberal attitudes: In the past fifteen years, gay marriage has increased in popularity in all fifty states. No news there, but what was a surprise to me is where the largest changes have occurred. The popularity of gay marriage has [...]

The Boy-Racer Moral Panic

The New Zealand government is cracking down on those anti-social youths: “Images of young people using their cars to race, intimidate, make excessive noise, generally threaten the public, are an unwanted feature of many communities in this country.” [Prime Minister John Key] says. He says his government will not watch by without trying to combat [...]

Asthma and the Limits of Public Choice

Jason Kuznicki wonders why politics has robbed him of an effective asthma treatment: My old CFC albuterol inhaler is much more effective than my new non-CFC inhaler. The medicine is the same, but the delivery system is awful. I’m dreading the day that my old inhaler runs out. Yes, I follow the directions on the new [...]

Libertarianism and Democracy

Will Wilkinson has a fantastic post on the anti-democratic tendencies of libertarians. Will says many things I agree with, and some I disagree with. Which brings us to Theil’s boneheaded quip about women’s suffrage. Extending the franchise to women is, in my estimation, one of the great triumphs of the American classical liberal tradition. Like [...]

Support for the Draft among Draftable Males

Paul Walker asks an interesting question in the comments about men being more supportive than women of a military draft: Any age breakdown on that. I would have thought that those men in the draftable age group would be against. I replied by saying: I’ll have a look at that, but my suspicion is that [...]