On page 169 of Man, Economy and State, Murray Rothbard asserts that “the origin of all property is ultimately traceable to the appropriation of an unused nature-given factor by a man and his “mixing” his labor with this natural factor to produce a capital good or a consumers’ good.” He makes two errors. Firstly in assuming that there are any unused unowned natural resources. Writing in the late 1950’s it should have been clear to… Read More »On Rothbard
I assert that long duration government borrowing is “taxation without representation” which is forbidden by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Governments have three choices to fund their programmes: taxation, borrowing, and money printing (such as QE). Taxation requires the current generation of taxpayers to pay for the current generation of expenditures. Whereas long duration borrowing requires that some future generation of taxpayers, will pay for the expenditures of today’s generation. That future generation,… Read More »Taxation without Representation: Stealing from our Children
A 16 year old girl is murdered in Warrington, UK, by two 15 year olds, who had been watching violent content online. My heart goes out to the family of the dead girl: it’s a tragedy to lose your daughter, and wonder whether there was something, anything, you could have done to have prevented it. The girl’s mother is reported by the BBC to have questioned whether the UK Online Safety Bill/Act is strong enough… Read More »Pointless Violence?
As with so many other aspects of economics, the origin of money gets caught up in politics. Many theorists want their preferred model of political economy to become self-evident from their analysis of what money is. Libertarians want to exclude the state from control of money and therefore assert that gold most exquisitely captures the required properties of money, and therefore it was inevitable that gold would become money, and requires no state imprimatur to… Read More »The Origin of Money in Sumer
These two parables appear in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:11-27. The parallel narratives of a wealthy traveller, entrusting his servants with a lot of money, are similar enough that many commentators treat them as the same parable. One common interpretation of these parables has the wealthy traveller as God, with the money as a symbolic metaphor of the gifts (yes, talents!) God has given each of us. Those who put their gifts to work are… Read More »A Theology of Money and Interest? Reflections on the Parable of the Talents / Ten Minas
Western pundits are fond of calling President Putin an autocrat and denigrating Russia as not a democracy. However their crocodile tears would be better shed at home, where lack of democratic legitimacy is at least as bad, if not worse. In the 2024 election in the UK, Labour secured a huge majority of seats and 100% control of government, with only 33.7% of the vote (and less actual votes than in 2019). More votes were… Read More »Shed a (crocodile) tear for democracy
On Method I use the terms “calvinist” and “arminian” as a shorthand for the two basic positions. Not to say that those two people believed or taught these specific things, but that their names have become associated with these positions. Even within the two major positions there are a number of variations. In choosing to support one of these positions, I do not mean to assert that those who support one of the other positions… Read More »Determinism or Free Will?
Suppose there is a group of 20 children in the class, and they all like apples. Would you rather….a) give one apple to each of the 20 childrenb) give three apples to a random 10 of the children, and nothing to the other 10Which do you choose? Option (a) looks fairer, because each child gets the same. Yet each child only gets one apple. 20 apples in all. Option (b) looks less fair, because the… Read More »Apples
Social organisations are inherently small-c conservative, in that over time, they tend to become more cautious, more inclined to stick with what has gone before, and less open to radical change. This applies all the way from small community organisations to the governments of countries and leadership of huge businesses. But why? The leaders of those organisations perceive that their own role as leaders will be less threatened by “more of the same” than by… Read More »Why organisations are inherently conservative
It would be nice if guaranteeing equality of outcomes could lead to a happier society, but it’s never going to happen. Communism is generally considered to be a political and economic system which is characterised by common ownership of the means of production and free access to the articles of consumption. It purports to be classless, stateless, and without money. Common ownership implies a planned economy, for it must exclude private trading and market determination… Read More »Why Communism must be Coercive