in turn enable further types of interactions beyond the realm of business. The genius of the market is that it enables a wide array of individuals, groupings, and associations to organize spontaneously to advance their various interests in a cooperative fashion that yields win-win arrangements.
Featured Posts
Blog
Fred Smith and the Hourglass of Market Evolution
Our much–loved CEI founder Fred L. Smith Jr. would often insist that we not refer merely to antitrust or antitrust policy, but…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Debt and taxes with Jack Salmon
In this week’s episode we cover the death of ESG investing, next moves on regulatory reform, Wall Street enthusiasm for a…
Forbes
Next SEC Must Restore Capital Formation Mission
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has rightly garnered criticism from both political parties over the last few years for its…
Search Posts
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Free the Economy podcast: Getting out of control with Neil Chilson
In this week’s episode we cover the American Nuclear Society’s Winter 2023 conference, the opportunities and pitfalls of online side-hustles, and the…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: The trouble with big-government conservatives with André Béliveau
In this week’s episode we talk about which state has the least-bad business taxes, how many Americans really love America, the continuing…
Blog
What we’re not seeing here: Why policy debates need Bastiat
I was honored to give a presentation this week to the George Mason University Economics Society. The title of my presentation was “Unseen Consequences: Frederic…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Polling capitalism with Karlyn Bowman
In this week’s episode we talk about the surprisingly low demand for free transit, the demographics of higher education in the U.S.,…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Financial regulation and ESG with Hester Peirce
In this week’s episode we talk about commuting via bicycle, regulatory reform legislation from Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the new book…
Blog
Barbie, lemons, and economics
Wayne Crews and I have a fun piece up at RealClearMarkets that ties together the Barbie movie, the vintage toy market, and Nobel economist…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Threats to economic freedom, then and now with Iain Murray
On this week’s podcast we talk about recycled Legos, socially responsible pension funds, pessimistic views about politics, and a special…
Blog
Net neutrality is political predation
It’s fitting that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chose to dig up the net neutrality corpse just before Halloween. Now, our elected representatives need to…
Econlib
Reevaluating the Influence of James Buchanan on Libertarian Thought
James M. Buchanan was an economist known for his affiliation with the “Virginia School of Political Economy,” otherwise known as Public Choice theory. Trained at…
Blog
Congress can say no to Bidenomics in shutdown showdown
The contentious fiscal year 2024 budget battle, which might result in a partial federal government shutdown, is unfurling precisely as the national debt is…
Blog
Will polyester recycling become fashionable?
The Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating article last week on the future of innovation and technology, but it’s not about AI or semiconductors.
Blog
The Powell Memo was good, actually
This week the Competitive Enterprise Institute published my study (co-written with my colleague Iain Murray) on the 50-plus year history of the…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: freedom and conservatism with Avik Roy
In this week’s episode we talk about the future of nuclear power, the possible end of remote work, and the complexities of…
News Release
Leftwing conspiracy theories about 1971 “Powell memo” debunked in new CEI report
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report debunks a leftwing conspiracy theory that free market interests seek a “corporate domination of America” (as Greenpeace put…
Study
Threats Then and Threats Now
Executive summary In 1971 Lewis Powell, a prominent Republican lawyer who would go on to serve on the Supreme Court, wrote a memo warning about…
Blog
S&P Global downplays its ESG ratings. Will rival ratings firms follow suit?
S&P Global, a premier financial data company, has recently put an end to its quantitative environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rankings. Rather than issue…
Blog
Are you ready for Jacobin the board game?
One of the most beautiful things about capitalism is that, wherever there is demand, there will be supply. Even though dedicated Marxists make up a…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: The ESG Agenda with Jack McPherrin
In this week’s episode we talk about job recruiters who lie to applicants, post-Covid reforms to the CDC, debunking socialist takes…
Law and Liberty
The Moral Foundations of Freedom Conservatism
The Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles, which several of us launched in July, is a simple restatement of the principles that have…
Blog
Free the Economy Episode 34: Permitting Prosperity with Daren Bakst
In this weeks episode we talk about labor union history, demands for a 4-day work week, YIMBY policy wins, and Reason’s…
Blog
Inflation Reduction Act turns one, and wow that’s an ugly baby
As President Joe Biden celebrates the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (here’s the White House “Fact Sheet“) we…
Blog
Free the Economy Episode 33: Federal Trade Commission Failures with Kimberlee Josephson
In this week’s episode we talk about defending financial privacy, new polling on what Republican voters want, reactions to new employment…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Government rules behind a paywall with Patrick McLaughlin
In this week’s episode we talk about banning incandescent light bulbs, mission creep at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, new nuclear capacity…
Blog
Good news about new business starts nationwide
The Economic Innovation Group has a fascinating report out this week on how we’re seeing a boom in new businesses being started – definitely a…
Blog
No, Florida, you can’t sue corporate directors for ‘going woke’
Recently Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called on the Sunshine State’s pension fund manager to consider action against Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev. In a…
Blog
Free the Economy Episode 31: Reforming the States with Carrie Conko
In this week’s episode we talk about the Federal Trade Commission’s takeover of AI policy, shareholder lawsuits against “woke” corporations, an encouraging…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Ugh! Capitalism! with Jeremiah Johnson
In this week’s episode we talk about Democrat and Republican myths, corporate welfare in Ohio, scams in the carbon offset market,…
Forbes
Biden’s Competition Council Targets Free Enterprise, Expands Government
Joe Biden’s Competition Council, created by his executive order dubbed “Promoting Competition In the American Economy,” celebrated its second anniversary and convened its …
Blog
Republican Working Group issues first critical report against ESG
Last month, the Republican Environmental, Social, and Governance Working Group (ESG Group) unveiled an interim report outlining GOP efforts to combat the ideological subversion of…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: School Choice for Everyone with Ed Tarnowski
In this week’s episode we talk about trends in self-employment, how rent control leads to more evictions, empty corporate gestures on…
Blog
Don’t believe the ‘cost-of-thriving’ doom
There has been a lot of discussion in the last several years – and even more so in the last few weeks – about income…
Blog
Adam Smith on how trade makes us better people
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
Adam Smith and the wealth of America
2023 is the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith’s birth. This post is part of a series highlighting aspects of Smith’s thought that continue to influence…
Blog
Younger workers don’t favor full-remote work
Among people who follow the news on workplace (and workforce) satisfaction, the opinions of younger workers are often considered especially relevant, because we assume that…
Blog
America takes Entrepreneurship Index top spot, former Soviet bloc countries close behind
Retail software maker Shopify recently released its “Entrepreneurship Index,” a global ecosystem of entrepreneurial activity. Shopify ranks the top ten countries with economies that…
Blog
Here comes state capitalism. There go our liberties.
CEI’s own Wayne Crews told the Washington Examiner recently, “Everything from local tap water to space commercialization is being turned into a government project.”…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: growth and taxes with Alex Muresianu
In this week’s episode we talk about Gen Z and remote work, businesses moving between states, and inspiring evidence of human…
National Review
Global Britain Is Closed for Business
One of the supposed benefits of Brexit was that Britain would once again become “Global Britain,” able to adjust its regulatory approaches to one more…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Capitalists of the world unite! with Richard Salsman
In this week’s episode, we talk about conservatives defending the D.C. swamp, Andrew Stuttaford’s warning about green land grabs, a new Heartland Institute report…
Blog
Time to rip the veil of secrecy off government agencies’ in-house courts
In a previous piece, we explored some of the pros and cons of administrative law courts (ALCs). These are regulatory agencies’ special in-house courts,…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Letting people prosper with Vance Ginn
In this week’s episode we talk about Warren Buffet’s electric vehicle pessimism, sky-high school funding in New York City, a report…
Blog
Robert Lucas, economist of possibilities, 1937-2023
Robert Lucas, 85, passed away this week. He was a prominent macroeconomist who won the 1995 economics Nobel. Others have remembered Lucas’s contributions to rationality…
Blog
New credit card late fee rule hurts folks who pay their bills on time
There has rightly been an outcry after the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which sets policy for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSE) Fannie Mae and Freddie…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Freedom is intoxicating with Jacob Grier
In this week’s episode we talk about public opinion regarding capitalism, eliminating COVID relief slush funds, rolling back parking mandates, partisan…
Blog
Senate committee yells ‘all aboard!’ for controversial Railway Safety Act
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved the Railway Safety Act this morning, with all Democrats and Republican Sens. J.D. Vance (OH) and Eric Schmitt…
Blog
Americans agree: Politics doesn’t solve most problems
Our friends at the Pew Research Center have some new political survey results out, and the numbers are…not encouraging. The research summary finds:…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Grow for tomorrow with Adam Millsap
In this week’s episode we talk about judicial deference at the Supreme Court, Biden’s new mortgage rate policy, how Americans are thinking…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Smart urbanism with Max Dubler
In the latest episode, we talk about John Berlau and Stone’s Washington’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed on financial regulation and free speech,…
Blog
Has Gary Gensler turned the SEC into a regulatory ‘Hotel California’?
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler hadn’t testified before the U.S. House of Representatives for 18 months. Republican members made up for lost…
National Review
The Free-Market Case Needs More Than Just Morality
George Leef and Mike Munger are right (of course) that we need to make the moral case for capitalism. Yet I would…
