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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A Toast to the Sears Catalog
In retail, as in every industry, eras come and go. Few recent events mark the passing of an era like the announced bankruptcy of…
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David Henderson (1927-2018), RIP
We are sad to note the death of our good friend and strong ally, David Henderson, on September 30th in London. After a career as…
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How to Articulate a Free-Market Vision for the Future
The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). The Competitive Enterprise Institute…
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Be a Giver with DonorsTrust and State Policy Network in Salt Lake City
This week the State Policy Network is holding its legendary annual meeting, this time in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. With hundreds of delegates from…
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New Study Reminds Regulators to Keep Focus on Consumer Welfare in Antitrust
Yesterday the good folks at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) held an important and timely event on the future of antitrust policy. The splotlight…
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VIDEO: ‘Gov’ Is Back and He’s Here to Help
Our creative friends at the Independent Institute in California are back with an entertaining new video series that pokes fun at some of the…
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Making a Living with Free Speech
Free speech protections in the United States are pretty far reaching, including protections for commercial free speech and occupational free speech. If you…
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Congress Should Stay out of Sports Betting Regulation
For the first time in twenty-five years, Americans can legally wager on the outcome of sporting events outside of Nevada. Thanks to a Supreme…
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Free Trade Challenges: Tariffs, Concentrated Benefits, and Diffused Costs
Tariffs hurt more people than they help. So why do those outnumbered few keep winning so many political victories at the majority’s expense? The answer…
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How Free Is Your State?
Our friends at the Cato Institute have a great new promotional video for the latest edition of their annual Freedom in the 50…
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Hernando de Soto: How To Make the Third World Richer than the First
Our good friend Nick Gillespie interviews Peruvian economist and property rights activist Hernando de Soto about the future of prosperity in the developing world, and…
Study
Traders of the Lost Ark
View Full Document as PDF With contributions by Fred L. Smith Jr., Marc Scribner, Daniel Press, and Ryan Khurana Profiles in Capitalism August…
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Debunking the (Plastic) Straw Man Arguments
Of all the consumer products one might have expected to become a flashpoint for political controversy, the humble plastic drinking straw is an unlikely contender.
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Made in Mékhé: An African Entrepreneur Makes the Case for Economic Freedom
When I was in Atlanta last month for the Foundation for Economic Education’s annual conference, FEEcon, I heard a lot of messages of…
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Free Trade Makes Us All Richer (Even If Other Countries Don’t “Play Fair”)
This week my colleague Ryan Young rightly warned that the White House’s newly announced tariffs on Chinese goods will harm Americans consumers and…
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VIDEO: Your Next Government? From the Nation State to Stateless Nations
Since the early days of classical civilization, when (a notably imperfect form of) democracy was born, at least some people in the world have…
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CEI Book Club: Peter Navarro and Greg Autry, Death by China
Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro has a longstanding animus against China. It is important to know Navarro’s thoughts on China. He played a major role…
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Remarks by CEI President Kent Lassman at 2018 Annual Dinner
Remarks by CEI President Kent Lassman at our Annual Dinner and Reception on June 28, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Welcome to the CEI annual dinner. Thank you all for…
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Will The Real Freaks Please Stand Up?
Thanks to everyone who made last night’s annual dinner and reception a great success. Our headliners Mick Mulvaney, Jonah Goldberg, and…
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Welcome to the CEI Annual Dinner
We’ve come to one of the most exciting times of the year—the week of the Competitive Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner and Reception. This year’s event,…
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Relearning Old Lessons about the Minimum Wage
The question of the minimum wage is a hot topic this week, as the voters of the District of Columbia just approved Initiative 77, …
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‘I, Whiskey’ Nominated for 2018 Reason Video Prize
Thanks to the great Nick Gillespie of Reason for Friday’s exciting announcement that the Competitive Enterprise Institute short film “I, Whiskey: The Human…
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Messages of Freedom and Hope from FEEcon
Last week I was in Atlanta enjoying the excitement and intellectual ferment of FEEcon, the annual conference held by the Foundation for Economic Education.
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Good News for Young Lemonade Stand Entrepreneurs
Every summer there are news stories about local authorities shutting down children’s lemonade stands over lack of licenses, permits, a lack of restaurant-grade kitchen or…
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How Socialism Devastated Venezuela
I’m attending FEEcon, the annual conference held by the Foundation for Economic Education, this week, and there’s an overwhelming number of great speakers…
Op-Eds
Do-er/Thinker Alliances: How Capitalists Can Defend Capitalism
The Fraser Institute of Canada just released a new book called Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging Population. The book contains a series of 10…
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Did You Hear the One about the Entrepreneur?
When putting together a chapter on entrepreneurship and regulation for the Fraser Institute’s new book “Demographics and Entrepreneurship: Mitigating the Effects of an Aging…
Blog
A New Bibliography for the Platform Economy
The future has arrived, and it is a radically different economy. Havas Media’s Tom Goodwin pointed out in 2015, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi…
Blog
Prof. Rajshree Agarwal on the Rubin Report: The True Value of Free Enterprise
I’ve been interested over the last several years to see Dave Rubin’s metamorphosis from stand-up comedian to podcast co-host to serious public affairs…
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What’s Driving the New Economy: Reviewing ‘Tomorrow 3.0’
We truly do live in amazing times. And according to Michael Munger, who directs Duke University’s multidisciplinary PPE program (it stands for Philosophy, Politics, and…
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Track How Humans Are Making Progress around the World
For several years now, HumanProgress has been an excellent source of data and scholarship on major demographic trends around the word. As longtime fans know,…
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Tax Complexity a Major Headache for Small Businesses Online
For a lot of small businesses in America, taxes are not just an expensive hassle but a scary, anxiety-inducing ordeal. Taxes are the…
Blog
Natural Isn’t Necessarily Better: Celebrating Human Achievement
Human Achievement Hour is the Competitive Enterprise’s Institute’s annual celebration of innovation and progress. During this hour, people around the world pay tribute to the advancements that inventors…
Blog
History Lesson in Technological Optimism: Simon, Jevons, and Lardner
Through his publications and scholarly work in the 1980s and 90s, the economist Julian Simon challenged the conventional wisdom and the intellectual position of the…
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Hernando de Soto Wins Julian Simon Memorial Award
It is enormously gratifying that this year’s winner of the Julian Simon Award is Hernando de Soto, whose work around the world to define,…
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Gains from Automation Create Path to Greater Prosperity
Automation has become somewhat of a dirty word recently. Fear of mass unemployment and widening inequality has led to calls for greater regulations of technology…
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Human Achievement Benefits Nature’s Creatures—Including Pets
Environmental activists want you to “take action for our planet and nature” by sitting in the dark for an hour on March 24th. But…
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Impressive Work on Display by Students for Liberty
Congratulations are in order to our friends at Students for Liberty and their CEO Wolf von Laer on a successfully annual conference recently held here…
Blog
What Will You Achieve with Your 8,760 Hours?
Several years ago CEI launched Human Achievement Hour, an annual celebration of innovation and progress. During this hour—this year, Saturday, March 24th from 8:30pm to…
Blog
‘Fair Shot’ by Chris Hughes: Facebook Co-Founder’s Book Rich in Anecdote and Emotion
Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, has a new book out with a dramatic suggestion for changing the distribution of wealth in the United States.
Blog
Happy Birthday to Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’
Being able to make voluntary transactions with others while having redress in the case of fraud sets the stage for larger, more complex, and longer-term market…
Blog
Tracking Public Opinion on Trump, Tariffs, and Trade
A Pew study noted that Republicans’ views on free trade shifted in a more negative way during the 2016 presidential campaign, while Democrats’ views…
Blog
Millennials Love Entrepreneurship But Skeptical of ‘Capitalism’
If we want Millennials to have a greater appreciation for the virtues of capitalism, we need to convey how their entrepreneurial aspirations can only be made possible…
Blog
Seeing How People Really Live around the World
A recent TED Talk by Anna Rosling Rönnlund features images collected by photographers dispatched to 264 different homes in 50 countries around the world. They document the stoves, bed,…
The Washington Times
Democratic Governors Outsource Climate Campaigns To Activist Groups, Emails Reveal
The Washingotn Times quoted Chris Horner on the cache of emails obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute through use of open records requests which shows…
Valuewalk
Time To End The GSE Conservatorship
When other financial institutions that received TARP funds paid back what they owed to the U.S. Treasury in full, the government relinquished its ownership stake…
Forbes
Online Gambling — None Of Washington’s Business (But Its Enemies Don’t Care)
Forbes cited Michelle Minton on the history of Pennsylvania Representative Charlie Dent and others to pass an amendment illegalizing state-based internet gambling within the state…
Blog
The Politics of Groundhog Day
In honor of the classic Bill Murray film “Groundhog Day,” Reason TV has released a “horrifyingly relevant” parody video about the seemingly endless national…
Blog
Young Americans’ Disdain for Capitalism Misplaced
The enmity that many young Americans hold towards capitalism can be attributed to ideological and partisan predispositions, personal experiences during the Great Recession, the ensuing…
U.S. News & World Report
Cutting Off Consumers
A new regulation will burden low- and middle-income Americans reliant on payday loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just released a new rule against payday…