Cláudia Ascensão Nunes: The Couto Mixto

A forgotten case of order without the state.

It is a deeply rooted belief in the Western political tradition, from Thomas Hobbes to contemporary interventionist currents, that a successful political community requires a strong central authority capable of imposing rules and guaranteeing order. According to this view, in the absence of such authority, society would inevitably collapse into chaos.

Patrick Carroll: Why Product Safety Regulations Should Be Scrapped

Consumer protection laws may be well-intended, but they have dangerous side effects.

A common objection to unfettered capitalism is that, left to their own devices, greedy industrialists would cut corners with product safety, resulting in tremendous harm to consumers. Dangerous products would flood the market, leading to a dystopia of preventable death and destruction.

Patrick Carroll: 7 Ridiculous Examples of Government Waste in 2023

To stop out-of-control spending, it will take more than replacing politicians and bureaucrats.

Almost nobody doubts that the federal government wastes a lot of money. Every day we hear stories of fraud, mismanagement, and misplaced priorities that cost taxpayers millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars.

Jon Miltimore: Why We Shouldn't Fear AI Destroying Hundreds of Millions of Jobs

Workers, entrepreneurs, and companies should explore ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into their workflows and businesses—and give the job displacement fears a rest.

I recently saw a quote on Facebook attributed to Sigmund Freud that I was going to share on social media.

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful,” the quote read.

Ulyana Kubini: Why Private Healthcare Is Booming in Scandinavian Countries

In the eyes of young voters and socialists of all creeds, Bernie Sanders is a superhero, passionately advocating for his vision of a socialist utopia in America. With Denmark as a shining example, he champions the idea that the U.S. should draw inspiration from the accomplishments of countries like Sweden and Norway, particularly when it comes to “benefiting the working class.”

During the 2016 presidential debates, he emphatically declared, "We should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people,” continuing the sentiment to this day.

Peter Jacobsen: Why Do Some Countries Stay Poor?

This week for Ask an Economist, I have a question from a reader named Mark. He says,

“I've worked with immigrants that recently moved to the US, and workers still living in their native country and working for me remotely.

My experience is that they're on average, much harder working and more skilled (even in technical fields) than my American colleagues. The foreigners work hard, making no excuses, grateful for the work, and take every opportunity to better themselves. Americans, on the other hand, demand much higher wages, complain about the work, and make little effort to improve themselves.

Since the people from many of these poor countries are better workers, why are their home countries so poor? Immigrants on average start more businesses and do better in the US than US born citizens. With all their skills and ambition, it seems their home countries ought to be significantly richer than the US cities, yet this isn't the case. What's the cause of these countries' poverty?”

Leonard E. Read: I, Pencil

The essay “I, Pencil” was first published in 1958. 

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman described it as a ‘classic’ and explained, “None of the thousands of persons involved in producing the pencil performed his task because he wanted a pencil. Some among them never saw a pencil and would not know what it is for… 

“It is even more astounding that the pencil was ever produced. No one sitting in a central office gave orders to these thousands of people. No military police enforced the orders that were not given. These people live in many lands, speak different languages, practice different religions, may even hate one another—yet none of these differences prevented them from cooperating to produce a pencil. How did it happen? Adam Smith gave us the answer two hundred years ago.”

Jon Miltimore: Banning Skittles Might Seem Trivial. It's Not

This is the trendy new strain of anti-capitalism . It’s designed to protect humanity by regulating what you consume.

My 9-year-old son and his teammates often buy Skittles at wrestling tournaments. Their theory is that eating them before matches gives them energy — especially certain colored ones.

“The red ones make you kick a**,” one boy told me. (I told him that’s good but that he shouldn’t use that word.)

Elijah Gullett: How the Supreme Court Could Break the Internet

Section 230 has been the key to our free and open Internet. Eliminating it now would be a deeply dangerous move.

Online free speech has been under fire from Congress, past presidents, and pundits from both sides of the political aisle. Now, it faces a new threat: the Supreme Court.

Julian Adorney - Hate Speech Laws: The Best Arguments for Them—and Against Them

What is hate speech, and why is it so controversial?

Hate speech is tricky to define (more on that later), but a workable definition is:

"Any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color[,] sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin."

Jon Hersey: Brazil Is Proving That There’s No Such Thing as Unbiased Censorship

As Americans sift through the Twitter Files and learn the shocking truth about U.S. government involvement in social media moderation, they can take important lessons from Brazil’s recent foray into censorship.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes recently visited the United States to lecture business leaders about “the future of democracy.” That’s concerning given Moraes’s penchant for resorting to force when dealing with detractors. In the short time he spent on American soil, he nearly got into a fight with a critic at a restaurant, and when a Brazilian journalist protested outside his hotel, Moraes had his passport revoked, leaving him stateless and stranded.