Seven Billion People and Counting

 by Mario Rizzo  

There has been quite a lot a talk in the last few days about the coming (or already-here) seven-billion world population. It is a truly amazing number.

Many pro-market and orthodox Catholics  will say this is a good thing. Remember Adam Smith’s dictum “The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.” It is true that a large population implies, in a system of natural liberty, larger markets, greater division of labor and hence greater productiveness of labor. There are many other advantages as well.

The orthodox Catholics will decry “artificial” birth control, including the use of condoms. Whether the use of condoms to prevent HIV transmission is morally permitted is still not clear in the papal teaching.

And yet there are massive numbers of people unable to feed themselves, dying of HIV, and unable to govern themselves in a way that produces peace. Unfortunately, it is just here that population is growing most rapidly.

So I may be forgiven if I think that seven billion people is a mixed blessing, at best.

Chicago and Vienna

by Jerry O’Driscoll

In the last two days, two prominent economists have asked me essentially the same question: what is the difference between Chicago and Austrian economics? It is interesting that both asked, particularly since one has a Ph.D from Chicago.

The second economist asked me specifically if Armen Alchian wasn’t really an Austrian. I’ll respond as I did to him. I learned most of my Austrian economics in the UCLA graduate economics program. (At that time, UCLA was known as Chicago West.) I was never an Alchian student, but one read lots of Alchian anyway. And his influence pervaded the department. It was obvious to me that Mises had influenced Alchian. Also Hayek, as is made clear in a video of Alchian interviewing Hayek.

Hayek’s classic essays on prices and information were on various reading lists at UCLA.

Malthusian Specter and Collective Action

by Chidem Kurdas

In an article titled “Can Our Species Escape Destruction?” John Terborgh argues that collective restraint is the one hope for stopping overgrown humanity’s devastation of the planet. This is a scientifically-imbued version of a common view. When the United Nations Population Fund announced that on Oct. 31st world population will reach seven billion, news stories referred to the event as a Halloween specter. 

The Rule of Discretion versus the Rule of Law: Soros Gets Nailed

by Mario Rizzo

In a previous post I reported a Cato Institute panel discussion of Friedrich Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty (as reissued in a new edition by The University of Chicago Press). This discussion was among Bruce Caldwell (Duke University), Ronald Hamowy (Cato and the University of Alberta), Richard Epstein (New York University), and George Soros, the mega-financier.

In this discussion, ostensibly about the rule of law, Soros said that the complexities of the financial sector require a new class of regulations that may not be simple, predictable and transparent. They may require considerable discretion on the part of regulators. This is because financial markets are the locus of radical uncertainty. It is thus impossible to predict beforehand the kinds of financial-instrument developments that will occur and, especially, the consequences these will have. Thus the financial regulations must be able to be creative in dealing with such developments. This apparently means the rule of law in its traditional sense will have to be bent or compromised.

Politics of Healthcare Rationing

by Chidem Kurdas

The Obama administration’s remake of the US healthcare system stands on three legs. It makes the purchase of insurance compulsory. It doles out new entitlements via expanded Medicaid, subsidies and certain benefit mandates. And it promises to control the growth of medical costs. The title of the 2010 law, the Affordable Care Act, highlights the cost containment feature and Paul Krugman, for instance, has repeatedly cited a Congressional Budget Office prediction that the changes would reduce the federal budget deficit by keeping down costs.

Now we have more information as to how this supposed cost containment works.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Sit Down To Talk

by Roger Koppl

Right in the middle of the book, Thing 1 and Thing 2 sat down to talk about a controversial topic.  It might have been politics or religion.  It might have been economics or, perhaps, global warming.  I don’t know.  Anyway, it was a Very Important Topic.   Just like you and me, Thing 1 and Thing 2 think in models, though not necessarily mathematical models.  Thing 1 thinks about the Very Important Topic with Model A and Thing 2 thinks about the Very Important Topic with Model B.  These models are in their heads. 

Revolution on Wall Street?

by Chidem Kurdas

Protestors have “occupied” a square near Wall Street for weeks. Hundreds of them were arrested, some 700 while blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. The movement may be spreading to other American cities. At least one demonstrator says: “This is a revolution.”

They complain of joblessness and the inequities of global capitalism, though the sources of their distress vary widely, from having to pay back student loans to the depredations of the internal combustion engine. At this point their immediate, tangible adversary appears to be the New York Police Department. It is easy to make fun of disaffected middle-class kids with Apple computers camping out in Downtown Manhattan. They bask in media limelight while taunting working-class cops. Still, we should try to understand the matter.