“We shouldn’t be surprised that what ultimately emerged was a dog’s breakfast of giveaways for special interests. That’s the nature of the political beast. As we continue to cede power to enormous rent-creating operations called governments, we shouldn’t be surprised by the results.” ~ Art Carden
“Like Adam Smith before him, Ronald Coase remains highly cited but still underrated. His ideas on transaction costs, rules, and organizations were influential, but as I wrote when he passed in 2013, ‘a few minutes with the ‘externalities’ section of almost any principles book, or a few seconds watching and listening to TV and radio…
“Nowrasteh and Powell have set the new terms of the debate on immigrants and institutions. Wretched Refuse? is the first book people should consult when asking about immigration policy. Maybe, then, immigration will become a development idea people are willing to try.” ~ Art Carden
“When our children and grandchildren look back on 2020, I hope they see how much of it probably could have been avoided had we embraced the Bourgeois Deal rather than the Bureaucratic Deal in the face of Covid-19. A lot more people probably would have lived to tell about it. Or better yet, had vaccines…
“Williams was a towering intellect who made the economic way of thinking come alive to generations of undergraduates, graduate students, readers, and anyone who would listen. He suffered no fools, which incidentally appears as the title of the 2014 Free to Choose Network documentary on his life and work. To adapt an African proverb, the…
“Intervention tends to beget intervention, which tends to beget still further intervention. In the long run, we are all worse off than we would have been had we just been able to avoid getting the government involved in the first place.” ~ Art Carden
“Milton Friedman in South Africa is a fascinating product of one of Friedman’s ventures during a controversial time. It is worth reading for anyone interested in understanding Friedman specifically or what Andrei Shleifer called ‘The Age of Milton Friedman’ more generally.” ~ Art Carden