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Download Issue (PDF) September 2003 Vol. 53, No. 8 8 The Individual and Society by Arthur E. Foulkes 0 Slim Pickings on the Job Bush by Gary McGatb 2 Neither Slavery Nor Involuntary Servitude by Aeon J. Skoble 7 Money Talks? by Gene Callahan !0 Regulatory Roadblocks to Turning Waste to Wealth by Pierre Desrocbers !5 The Real Population Problem by Jim Per on 18 Government-Reformulated Gas: Bad in More Ways than One by Michael Heberling J4 The Loss of a Scholar: Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson by Norman Barry J7 The Economic Foundation of Freedom by Howard Buffett Andrew Johnson Columns 15 THOUGHTS on FREEDOM—Butwhatabout . ? by Donald J. Boudreaux 23 PERIPATETICS—To the Medical Socialists of All Parties by Sheldon Richman 32 OUR ECONOMIC PAST—Andrew Johnson and the Constitution by Burton Folsom, Jr. 47 THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS—Lessons from the Washington Teachers Union by Charles W. Baird Departments 2 Perspective—Is the Marketplace Efficient? by Sheldon Richman 4 From the President—The Importance of FEE, Then and Now by Richard M. Ebeling 6 The Market Endangers the Arts? It Just Ain't So! by Shikha Dalmia 41 Book Reviews Rethinking the Great Depression: A New View of Its Causes and Consequences by Gene Smiley, reviewed by George C. Leef; The Pity of It All: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743-1933 by Amos Elon, reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling; The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society, edited by David T. Beito, Peter Gordon, and Alexander Tabarrok, reviewed by William L. Anderson; The Collapse of the Common Good by Philip K. Howard, reviewed by Harold B. Jones, Jr. Published by The Foundation for Economic Education IDEAS Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 Phone: (800) 960-4FEE; (914) 591-7230 PERSPECTIVE ON LIBERTY Fax: (914) 591-8910; E-mail: [email protected] FEE Home Page: www.fee.org Is the Marketplace Efficient? President: Richard M. Ebeling It is tempting to defend the free market b Editor: Sheldon Richman claiming it's efficient. But we'd better resis Managing Editor: Beth A. Hoffman that temptation. It can lead to trouble. Individuals surely strive for efficiency; t< Editor Emeritus Paul L. Poirot the best of his knowledge, each persoi Book Review Editor attempts to economize resources, time, an< George C. Leef energy in the pursuit of goals, and each nec Columnists essarily puts higher values before lower ones Charles W. Baird Robert Higgs As Israel Kirzner suggests, if all we wish tt Donald J. Boudreaux Lawrence W. Reed Stephen Davies Russell Roberts claim when we say the market is efficient i: Burton W. Folsom, Jr. Thomas Szasz that it lets individuals coordinate with other; Walter E. Williams in pursuit of their personal aims, then thai Contributing Editors claim is unobjectionable. The problem is thai Doug Bandow Dwight R. Lee many economists, unrealistically assuming Norman Barry Wendy McElroy Peter j. Boettke Tibor R. Machan equilibrium and perfect knowledge, think James Bovard Andrew P. Morriss there's more to the claim. You can see this Thomas J. DiLorenzo Ronald Nash Joseph S. Fulda Edmund A. Opitz when they assert that the market directs Bettina Bien Greaves James L. Payne resources to their best, or highest-valued, John Hospers William H. Peterson Raymond J. Keating Jane S. Shaw use. Daniel B. Klein Richard H. Timberlake Lawrence H. White To a methodological individualist this should be troubling. "Best" to whom? If I Foundation for Economic Education choose between using a quantity of gasoline Board of Trustees, 2003-2004 to run my lawnmower and to drive to the David Humphreys Paige K. Moore Chairman Secretary park, it makes sense to say that my choice Frederick C. Foote Dan Grossman indicates my highest-valued use of the gaso­ Vice Chairman Treasurer line. At any given time, I have a scale of val­ ues that is revealed by what I do. If I drive Henry M. Bonner Jane M. Orient, M.D. to the park I demonstrate that, at the Lloyd Buchanan Tom G. Palmer Walter LeCroy Andrea Millen Rich moment of choosing, I prefer that to a Roy Marden Sally von Behren mown lawn. Kris A. Mauren Guillermo M. Yeatts But we can't use this kind of analysis with more than one person. What's a higher- Ideas on Liberty (formerly The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty) is pub­ lished by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., Irvington- valued use of the gasoline: my driving to the on-Hudson, NY 10533. FEE, established in 1946 by Leonard E. park or your mowing your lawn? There's no Read, is a non-political, educational champion of private property, the free market, and limited government. FEE is classified as a 26 USC answer to that question because more than 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. one value scale is in the picture and no way Copyright © 2003 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, provided exists to rank the two activities. If that's true credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to for two people, it's no less true for 285 mil­ FEE. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through lion people. There is no social value scale to donations, which are invited in any amount. Donors of $39.00 or consult. The idea that there is such a scale more receive a subscription to Ideas on Liberty. For delivery outside the United States: $54.00 to Canada; $64.00 to all other countries. lies at the heart of collectivism. Student subscriptions are $10.00 for the nine-month academic year; The price system won't get us out of this $5.00 per semester. Additional copies of this issue of Ideas on Liberty are $4.00 each. difficulty. If you outbid me for the gasoline, Bound volumes of The Freeman and Ideas on Liberty are available requiring me to forgo the park and enabling from The Foundation for calendar years 1972 to 2001. The magazine is available in microform from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb you to mow, we cannot say that you value Rd„ Ann Arbor, MI 48106. the mowing more than I value the recreation. Why not? Because there is no unit with 2 yhich to measure value, or utility, and thus A town in Denmark is a textbook model LO basis for comparing such things between at turning industrial waste into valuable individuals. What we can say is that I prefer resources—and government planners had vhatever else I plan to buy with the money nothing to do with it. Pierre Desrochers has o time in the park, and you prefer a mown the details. awn to whatever else you could have spent There's a population problem after all. he money on. (We could both discover But it's not the one the environmental lobby ve're mistaken.) But those are separate has warned of for the last 30 years. Jim wrra-personal value comparisons and so do Peron spells it out. tot violate methodological individualism. Thanks to government, we have reformu­ We can also say that rising prices for lated gasoline. Michael Heberling wants to •esources tend to encourage individuals to know how many more gifts like this we can postpone or cancel their (personal) low- stand. priority projects, which frees the resources Students of the Austrian, or subjectivist, tor other individuals' (personal) high-priority approach to economics know that a precur­ projects. That may be mistaken for a shift to sor to that approach was developed by the socially "higher valued" uses, but it isn't the School of Salamanca in late-sixteenth and same thing. early-seventeenth-century Spain. Norman (For more, see Roy Cordato, "Free Mar­ Barry reports on the passing of an eminent kets and 'Highest Valued Use,'" Ideas on scholar of the School of Salamanca. Liberty, May 2000, online at www.fee.org/ As the success of America demonstrates, vnews.php?nid=4623.) private property, though much disparaged, is indispensable to freedom. The late con­ gressman Howard Buffett knew this well, as he shows in a classic reprint from 1956. So much bad public policy comes out of Here's what our columns cover this the belief that the needs of the individual and month: President Richard Ebeling demon­ the needs of the community clash. Nonsense, strates that FEE is needed more than writes Arthur Foulkes. ever. Donald Boudreaux discourses on It's tough being unemployed, but that's no free trade. Burton Folsom documents Presi­ reason to portray oneself as a victim and dent Andrew Johnson's respect for the capitalism as the victimizer. Gary McGath Constitution. Charles Baird draws lessons explains why. from the Washington, D.C., teachers- The war in Iraq brought calls for a union scandal. And Shikha Dalmia, after resumption of the military draft. Aeon mulling over the claim that culture needs Skoble demonstrates why that would be a taxpayer subsidies, remonstrates, "It Just big mistake. Ain't So!" It's a popular notion—and there are cliches Coming under scrutiny in our book- to prove it—that those on the money side of a review department are volumes on the Great transaction are superior to those on the goods Depression, the Jews in Germany, cities, and and services side. Gene Callahan exposes the the "common good." faulty economics in that thinking. —SHELDON RICHMAN 3 From the? Pr^sid^rrt IDEAS by Richard M. Ebeling ON LIBERTY SEPTEMBER 2003 The Importance of FEE, Then and Now hen Leonard Read established the rienced economic liberty, is taking over Foundation for Economic Educa­ Young men who have become accustomec tion in 1946, the United States had to being regimented and restricted are com just passed through 12 years of ing into positions of responsibility in busi W ness.
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