Sublime

The idea that more trade is good (on balance) is deeply engrained in anybody who went to graduate school in economics. In May 1930, over a thousand economists had written a letter encouraging President Hoover to veto the Smoot-Hawley bill. And yet there is something else economists do know but tend to keep closely to themselves: the aggregate gains

It struck me as an instance of regulatory empire building—a classic Washington maneuver: recognize a new innovation in order to force ever more businesses into the regulatory framework.

policies.

The truth is that the story of the “tragedy of the commons”, commonly used to justify the need for capitalist markets and push for neoliberal economic policy, was one made up by the conservative American ecologist Garrett James Hardin.8 Hardin later retracted his original thesis in response to evidence of historical and existing commons, stating th

When we have no idea what something should cost, we believe we’re making the best decision if we neither overspend on the deluxe model nor go too cheap on the basic one.