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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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…
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Introducing a Free-Market Agenda for Accountability and Prosperity
The governance of American life has been handed over to an operating system that subtly and perversely drives individuals’ behavior away from their own decisions.
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The Legacy of Economist Harold Demsetz (1930-2019)
Economist Harold Demsetz, a Chicago school theorist who was one of the pioneers of the approach now called New Institutional Economics, had died. The former…
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A Free-Market Agenda for the 116th Congress
After a contentious election season, we look forward to the nation’s elected representatives rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Divided party control in…
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Iconic NYC Bookstore Owner Pleads: Don’t Landmark My Property
Our friends at Reason have been following a fascinating story unfolding in New York City, in which a business owner is trying to fend off what many people would…
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Best Books of 2018: Life after Google
Are Tucker Carlson’s predictions of Google taking over the future keeping you up at night? Sooth yourself with the creative destruction described in “Life after…
Blog
Best Books of 2018: Suicide of the West & Enlightenment Now
Goldberg’s “Suicide of the West” is a literate, snappily written, and often humorous defense of Enlightenment values and a broadside against populism. Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment…
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Best Books of 2018: Factfulness
Think Julian Simon, Matt Ridley, and Steven Pinker’s data-driven optimism, mixed with Michael Shermer and Bryan Caplan’s awareness of human cognitive biases, as told by…
Blog
Fighting for Small Business: Whiskey Edition
This week marks the 85th anniversary of the end of Prohibition, and we still have a lot to learn from that dismal experiment in government overreach.
Blog
Don’t Blame Google for a Feature Consumers Want
It’s very rare I disagree with the great freedom-loving journalist John Stossel, but his column at Townhall this week made me raise an eyebrow. In…
Blog
New Ideas for Addressing Poverty and Inequality
While the political headlines this week are dominated by a public feud between the Secretary of the Interior and the likely incoming chairman of the…
Blog
Freedom and Whiskey Go Together
Recently Dave Sussman of the show Whiskey Politics featured myself and my old pals Drew Tidwell and Helen Straight of Passing Lane Films on his…
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Happy 50th Anniversary to Reason
Congratulations to our friends at Reason magazine (and the Reason Foundation) on their golden anniversary. Some members of the Competitive Enterprise Institute team were recently…
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Wealth in Disguise: Why Halloween Costumes Are Better Than Ever
Before we bid farewell to Halloween week 2018 for good, let’s take a chance to glean an economic lesson from the piles of candy, cardboard…
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Is Capitalism Destroying Democracy?
When Duke University historian Nancy MacLean released her book “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” last Summer,…
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Mapping Public Policy Wins at the State Level
The fine folks at the State Policy Network deserve well-earned congratulations on the completion of yet another successful annual meeting, this year co-sponsored by…
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Help the Poor by Making Their Lives Less Expensive
The Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne has a great new study (and accompanying video) out about social welfare, government spending, and regulatory reform.
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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.
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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,…
Blog
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, …
Blog
‘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…
Blog
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.
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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,…
Blog
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…
