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
America as an act of disobedience
CEI’s annual Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Dinner is on September 23. The theme is American Treasures. This post celebrates one of the…
Daily Wire
Trump’s $5,000 Down Payment On The Entitlement State
Donald Trump’s $5,000 “dividend” proposal to every U.S. adult should be taken seriously, not because the arithmetic has been worked out, since there isn’t…
News Release
CEI praises Schumer’s good idea on trade reform
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has introduced a bill, the End Trump’s Tariff Tax Act, to repeal Trump tariffs and duties on Canada…
Search Posts
Blog
Correcting a Couple of Inflation Whoppers
Over at National Review’s Capital Matters site, I have a piece pointing out that today’s high gas prices aren’t caused by inflation. They’re…
Blog
Antitrust Is Political
Antitrust regulation is just as politicized as other forms of regulation. Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich’s just-announced investigation into investors whose politics he doesn’t…
The Washington Times
What Would George Washington Have Done?
The Washington Times cites Senior Fellow John Berlau on his book, George Washington, Entrepreneur: John Berlau has just written a most…
Blog
George Washington, Larry David, Cryptocurrency, and Freedom
One of the most talked-about Super Bowl ads was that of Larry David traveling through history and naysaying innovations that turned out to be…
Blog
Staying the Course for Liberty
At the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we focus on policy issues ranging from tech and telecommunications to energy and the environment to financial regulation and…
Blog
In Memoriam: P.J. O’Rourke
From Rolling Stone to nearly 20 rollicking books, P.J. O’Rourke explained the inexplicable, from war and every imaginable human privation to the peccadillos of…
News Release
CEI Welcomes Communications Expert to Center for Advancing Capitalism
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is pleased to welcome writer, communications expert, and political scientist Joshua Bandoch as a Research Fellow in its Center…
News Release
House Democrats’ China Bill Would Make the U.S Less Competitive and Harm Consumers
The House of Representatives is considering the America COMPETES Act this week, a bill described by sponsors as a “China competition bill.” The wide-ranging…
Fee Stories
Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Economist Richard Salsman presents liberty advocates with a striking rhetorical question in the title of his most recent book. Are there really fewer capitalists than…
Blog
Retro Book Reviews: A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity by Luigi Zingales (Basic Books, 2012)
University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales’s book A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity, which celebrates its 10th…
Blog
Which Classic Books Deserve a Retro Review in 2022?
Every year, there’s a tsunami of new books about economics, politics, and public policy that are full of hot takes and policy recommendations. In…
Blog
Edmans, Soukup, and Devine: 2021 Book Review Roundup
We saw some great books on economics and politics published over the past year, and some excellent book reviews. Just this week, my colleague…
Blog
Review of Vivek Ramaswamy’s Woke, Inc.
Vivek Ramaswamy—pharmaceutical entrepreneur, son of immigrants, Yale Law grad, Hindu, and political conservative—is a capitalist with a lot of strong criticism for big business…
Blog
Best Books of 2021: Ryan Bourne, Economics in One Virus (Cato Institute, 2021) and Caleb Fuller, There Is No Free Lunch (Freiling, 2021)
Economists are an unpopular bunch. One reason for this is that much of their job is putting parameters on people’s utopias. Spending more…
Blog
Seven Quotes about Communism
Years ago, I pulled together some quotations about Communism that I thought would make good epitaphs for what I believed was a dying ideology.
Blog
Review of Michael Munger, The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2021)
Transaction costs are one of the most overlooked ideas in economics. They are also one of the most important. The lowering of transaction costs…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.”…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
