Gus Stelzer, a retired General Motors senior executive, is on a rampage against free trade. It makes sense from his point of view. Like most big business, GM does not welcome competition from abroad, however much it's spurred product improvements over the years. It turns to the government to tax imports that consumers desire more.
Should free enterprise stop at the border? Of course not, and the attempt to make it so can drive us to ruin. Yet politicians are hammering free trade. Long-refuted myths are back in full force, and the voters are getting a miseducation in the economics of autarky.
Well, the Nissan Motor Corporation just proved that it can be every bit as shortsighted as any American company by giving $150,000 to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. According to the new NAACP president, ex-Congressman Kweisi Mfume, the money will be used for "voter registration and education," presumably to elect more left-wing ideologues like himself.
Want to hear what a scoff sounds like? The next time you're talking to a political scientist, an economist, or a public employee, mention the possibility of a private road. Roads aren't supposed to be private, right? They are supposed to be "public goods," meaning that capitalists can't or won't build them so government has to.
Jews have been a conspicuous presence in black neighborhoods for more than a century, providing food, home furnishings, medical care, living accommodations, and financial services. Most of the Jews involved in these enterprises were first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe. In recent times, as Jews have veered toward more decorous occupations, these functions have been increasingly assumed by newer immigrants, often Korean or Arab.
The sad spectacle of political stalemate in the United States suggests that Americans are stuck with our current size and scope of government—and the lackluster economy that the government's strictures cause. Is the welfare state a tangled web from which no nation can escape?
Evidently not.
To this day Christmas remains a celebration of liberty and private life, as well as a much-needed break from the incessant politicization of modern life. It's the most pro-capitalist of all holidays because its temporal joys are based on private property, voluntary exchange, and mutual benefit.
Want to please a lawyer? Find a long-established legal rule that minimizes disputes. Then propose that this rule be radically changed. Such thrill seeking seems to be the motive behind a recent proposal to make advertisers liable for "puffery."
This is a most peculiar book. As a glance at McCloskey's enormous bibliography suffices to reveal, our author appears to have read everything.
After two years of pretending to be for free trade, the Clinton administration, backed by the Republican leadership in Congress, finally 'fessed up. In their dealings with China and Mexico, they shredded two centuries of economic wisdom, repudiated every principle of sensible economic relations, and kicked taxpayers and consumers in the teeth.
