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
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Distinguished guests celebrate liberty movement jubilee
I recently returned to D.C. from Tampa, Florida, where I attended the 60th anniversary meeting (“Diamond Jubilee”) of the Philadelphia Society. For those who…
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Free the Economy podcast: Frontier economics with Kendall Cotton
In this week’s episode we cover the diamond jubilee of the Philadelphia Society, the cost of government regulation in the UK, the…
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Bees are flourishing again. Thanks, capitalism!
You can relax, everyone: The honeybees are back. As Andrew Van Dorn of the Washington Post reported recently, America suddenly now has a record…
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National Review
The Race-Marxists Finally Went Too Far
What good American would disagree that “black lives matter”? Who could be opposed to “diversity, equity, and inclusion”? Who doesn’t believe…
Newsweek
The Shaky Case for Mandating Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards
It’s a good time to be a female business executive in America. The percentage of firms with female CEOs is rising, and a …
Blog
New Analysis on ESG Investing: Friedman, Edmans, and Materiality
At times it seems like public events on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing are a dime a dozen; some think tank, consulting firm, or…
Blog
I, Pencil Meets Today’s Political Realignment
Conservatives are different than they were just a few years ago, and it isn’t just because of Trump, who is more a symptom than a…
Blog
The 2021 Economics Nobels: The Importance of Empiricism, and its Limits
The economics Nobel is given to individuals, but it often really intends to recognize schools of thought or methodological approaches. That is the case with…
Blog
Retro Review: The Social Responsibilities of Business (1970)
The Biblical book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “there is no new thing under the sun.” Even centuries before the modern era, our ancestors…
Blog
Federalist Society Experts Duel on Climate Risks and Regulation
Earlier this week, the Federalist Society presented a panel discussion titled “Corporate Social Responsibility, Investment Strategy, and Liability Risks” that addressed some important issues…
Blog
Fighting Bias and Misinformation, from Pierre Bayle’s 17th Century to the Social Media Age
Many people insist that media bias and misinformation are getting worse in the social media age, and we need to do something about it. Depending…
Real Clear Policy
Don’t Force a One-size-fits-all Framework On Social Investors
Interest in environmental, social, and governance-themed, or ESG, investing has seen significant growth in recent years, but it has been matched by persistent complaints from…
Blog
Capitalism and Corporations: Respect Stakeholders, But Follow the Law
Last week the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University hosted a fascinating event here in Washington, D.C. on the debate over shareholder…
National Review
Economic Tea Party, R.I.P.
National Review Online’s esteemed editor, Philip Klein, asked an important question last week. Referring to the lack of opposition to the president’s big-spending agenda, he …
Law & Liberty
A Lawless Environmental Agenda
Recently a Dutch district court issued an unusual decision ordering oil company Royal Dutch Shell to dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by…
National Review
Biden’s Executive Order Moves the U.S. One Step Closer to Rule by Decree
President Biden’s sweeping executive order on competition is a strange beast. It lurches from lofty claims about encouraging competition to niggling complaints about…
Inside Sources
The Case Against a Universal Basic Income
The financial dislocations of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented cash benefits that policymakers implemented in response have sparked renewed interest in an old…
Forbes
How Regulation Creates an Elite Investor Class
Forbes cites Senior Fellow John Berlau on his book, George Washington, Entrepreneur: How Our Founding Father’s Private Business Pursuits Changed America and the World:…
Comment
Public Input on Climate Change Disclosures: Questions for Consideration
View Full Document as PDF Dear Commissioner Lee, Please find below comments from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in response to selected questions…
The Foundation for Economic Education
What ‘The Enduring Tension’ Can Teach Us about the Core Institutions of Our Civilization
Don Devine’s ambitious new volume is that rare published work that delivers an even larger and broader message than its title promises. A focus on…
Blog
New Study: Defusing the ESG Threat to Shareholder Rights
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute published my new study on theories of enlightened investing, Environmental, Social, and Governance Theory: Defusing a Major Threat to…
Study
Frequently Asked Questions on ESG Theory
View Full Document as PDF Q: What does “ESG” stand for? A: ESG is short for “environmental, social, and governance.” It is a…
Study
Environmental, Social, and Governance Theory
View Full Document as PDF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The concept known as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) theory has a long history of similar,…
Blog
Expect Search for Corporate Virtue to Get Increasingly Expensive
Last week I wrote about a video from the Financial Times that was meant to explain environmental social, and governance (ESG) investing. Despite…
Blog
Don’t Believe the Hype: ESG Investing Advice Hides Serious Flaws
In a recent video for the “Moral Money” section of the Financial Times, reporter Brooke Fox took on the question “What does ESG-friendly really…
The Dispatch
The Rejection of Globalism—on the Left and the Right—Is Changing Our Political Alignments
Many traditional conservatives are dumbstruck when they see Republicans like Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley or venture capitalist/potential candidate J.D. Vance espousing what they regard as…
FEE
Got Woke: A Review of ‘The Dictatorship of Woke Capital’
How did corporate America, long considered one of the most conservative American institutions, become a lead protagonist in a culture war over all manner of…
Blog
Americans Ambivalent about Billionaire Influence, Reject Left-Wing Hostility
New polling, recently written up at Reason, shows that the American public isn’t nearly as hostile to capitalism, and the leaders of big…
National Review
Corporations Don’t Pay Corporate Taxes. People Do
A mammoth infrastructure bill is on the way from Congress, and policy-makers are touting a corporate-tax-rate hike to help pay for it. Treasury secretary…
Blog
Book Review: Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg
On March 25, 2021 at noon ET, CEI is hosting a double book forum featuring Johan Norberg, the 2019 winner of CEI’s Julian L. Simon…
Blog
Perspectives on “Woke Capital” and Politicized Investing
Recently, the Competitive Enterprise Institute hosted a virtual book event for Political Forum publisher Steve Soukup’s new book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital:…
Blog
Adam Smith Slavery Controversy Can be Settled by his Writings
According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, the grave of Adam Smith in his home city of Edinburgh has been included in a citywide review as…
News Release
CEI Celebrates Fred L. Smith, Jr.’s 80th Birthday with Anthology of His Writing
Fred L. Smith, Jr. celebrated his 80th birthday just before the New Year, and his friends and colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Study
Labor of Love: A Fred Smith Story
View Full Book as PDF Edited by Kent Lassman, Amanda France, and Ivan Osorio INTRODUCTION View Introduction as PDF Everyone…
News Release
Richard Morrison Statement on the Confirmation Hearing of Gary Gensler to Be SEC Chair
Senior Fellow Richard Morrison reacted to the confirmation hearing of Gary Gensler to be SEC Chair: “Chairman-designate Gensler’s prepared remarks for today’s confirmation hearing…
C-SPAN
VIDEO: The Dictatorship of Woke Capital on C-SPAN
C-SPAN shared CEI’s virtual discussion of the just published The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business with author Steve Soukup in…
Blog
Federalist Society and SEC’s Roisman on Future of ESG, Corporate Governance
Yesterday the Federalist Society held an excellent virtual event on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) theory, addressing “the divergent…
The Jim Bohannon Show
AUDIO: John Berlau Joins Jim Bohannon to Discuss His Book “George Washington, Entrepreneur.”
Senior Fellow John Berlau joins Jim Bohannon to discuss his book “George Washington, Entrepreneur.”…
WCHV's Joe Thomas in-the-morning
AUDIO: John Berlau Joins WCHV’s Joe Thomas in-the-morning
Senior Fellow John Berlau joins WCHV’s Joe Thomas in-the-morning to discuss his new book, George Washington, Entrepreneur.
Blog
Upcoming CEI Event: Bart Wilson on The Property Species
At noon ET on Thursday, February 11, CEI is hosting an event with the experimental economist Bart Wilson, author of The Property…
Blog
CEOs Join Davos Wonks to Launch New Corporate ESG Disclosures
Axios’ “cheerful iconoclast” Felix Salmon reported earlier this week on an agreement by dozens of major corporations to support a new system of…
Blog
BlackRock’s Larry Fink: Fight COVID with Climate Activism
Larry Fink, CEO of mega asset management firm BlackRock, has released his annual pair of letters—one to the CEOs of companies that BlackRock holds…
Ricochet
AUDIO: Iain Murray Discusses Socialism on Action Line Podcast
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow Iain Murray joins “Action Line” to discuss the reasons why socialism is not an effective method for reducing…
Blog
2020 Was Difficult. It Was Not the Worst Year Ever
It’s been a hard year, and I am hardly alone in being glad it’s almost over. But was 2020 the worst year ever? Over…
Blog
Best Books of 2020: Joseph Henrich – The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
It’s early, but The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich will likely be…
Blog
Best Books of 2020: Virgil Henry Storr and Ginny Seung Choi – Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019)
Most people see markets as dens of greed and moral corruption. In their new book, Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals?, Virgil…
The American Spectator
Money Isn’t Ruining Christmas
ost of us love the idea of a snow-filled white Christmas, but secretly dread the accompanying blizzard of commentary about how we ruin the season…
Blog
Some Frequently Asked Questions about Socialism
During my virtual “tour” for the release of my book, The Socialist Temptation, certain questions came up regularly. I have already set out my…
Blog
Walter Williams, 1936-2020
Walter Williams passed away this week at age 84. He was the rare economist to succeed as both an academic and a popular communicator.
Blog
Biden Team Expected to Take Hatchet to Pension Protection Rule
The Department of Labor, under the leadership of Secretary Eugene Scalia, implemented an important (though widely misunderstood) rule this year, regarding how federally regulated pension…
Blog
Retro Review: The Communist Manifesto (1848)
The manifesto of the Communist party, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847 and first published the next year, has a legendary pair…
Blog
Millennials, Gen Z Optimistic about Hard Work Leading to Prosperity
The Walton Family Foundation released an interesting survey recently that found that Generation Z (ages 13–23) and Millennial (ages 24–39) Americans are more optimistic…
Watch Rushing In: The John Wood Story
New CEI Documentary Spotlights Entrepreneur Who Kept Diner Open To Feed Thousands during Lockdowns
During this pandemic and time of social unrest, many people wish they could take action and might not think that small, organized steps could positively…