>Russell Roberts’ "Treasure Island: The Hidden Elegance of Comparative Advantage"

>Over at EconLog, Russ Roberts introduces the concept of Comparative Advantage by telling the fictional story of two married couples who shipwreck upon the same island. Each couple, together, encompass differing skill levels for the same sets of activities. In this case two: Fishing and collecting water. The second couple to land upon the Island, […]

>"Walking the Line" to appear on Free Speech Television tonight, 10/29

> The documentary on the Minute Men – those good ole’ boys dependent upon the officially sanctioned border patrol, eager to round up those that would defy state property – will air tonight on Free Speech Television. Consult your local cable company for any specifics beyond that. In the picture above, a member of the […]

>Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs. Dean Ahmad on Islam and Liberalism

> Ali, the famous and controversial (former) Dutch MP and very vocal critic of Islam – in its entirety – spoke to the Toronto Star newspaper and had this to say: The basic tenets of Islam and the basic tenets of the rule of law are mutually exclusive.Contrast that statement with that of Dean Ahmad […]

>Karl Hess on the New Left’s vocabulary, the use of violence and spontaneous action, and category-defying Black Panther alliances

>I was bothered also by the New Left’s use of jargon – such as using praxis rather than practice, of replicate rather than duplicate, a special language invented seemingly to prove that when New Lefters spoke even of ordinary things of life they were speaking as intellectually superior people. I was also puzzled with special […]

>Roderick Long’s "The Justice and Prudence of War"

>Check it out at Mises.org. But here is an excellent excerpt (excell-excerpt?): Not only are defensive and restitutive uses of force the only ones that can be justified, but even they are subject to a proportionality requirement. Suppose that for some reason the only way to prevent a toddler from treading on my toe is […]

>A personal account of "Plural Marriage"

> The following is an anonymous plural wife’s account of life among the dissident Mormons who still practice polygamy (oh how the word “dissident” applied to these folks must send shivers up progressive spine!), taken from the book “Voices in Harmony“: “10% of a 100% Man Rather Than 100% of a 10% Man”I was raised […]

>How NOT to formalize property rights

> Ben Cousins and colleagues of the Program for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of Western Cape in South Africa have published a short report of their study of property rights procurement in Ekuthuleni, a city on the east coast of the country nestled in the Drakensberg mountains. They critique the property rights […]

>Don’t think me cynical, but here’s an unorthodox way to introduce basic economics

>(REPOST FROM Saturday, August 26, 2006) A story in Al-Jazeera yesterday tells us that Palestinians are enthralled by a song called “Hawk of Lebanon” by the boy-band outfit dubbed “Northern Band”. Not an especially exciting name, but whatever. The song’s simple lyrics, “Hey, you, hawk of Lebanon. Hey, you, Nasrallah, Your men are from Hezbollah […]

>Robert Pape on the true nature of Hezbollah

>(REPOST FROM Monday, August 07, 2006) Robert Pape of the University of Chicago writes in the NYT: Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to […]

>Do we ever really get away from "Personal Responsibility"?

>(REPOST FROM Thursday, August 03, 2006) Even people that deride the conservative notion of “personal responsibility” don’t really disbelieve it. They can’t. They at least must believe that they are personally responsible for countering the conservatives’ ideas, and for changing the “social structure” and/or “the system” that renders people helpless. So there are many ways […]