Undergrads take note! Steve Horwitz is offering a monetary prize for best essay on a Doonesbury cartoon. (But hurry!)
Jim DeLong’s new book – Ending ‘Big Sis’ – is out. I read it in manuscript form and recommend it highly. (‘Sis’ is an acronym for “special-interest state.”)
GMU law professor Ilya Somin, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, challenges Peter Orszag’s case for mandatory voting. Be sure also to click on and read the link that Ilya has to Tim Cavanaugh’s essay on this matter over at Reason’s Hit & Run. (Why are so many people willing to jump at the opportunity to to use force to [try to] make observed patterns of human behavior conform to patterns that that these force-loving people imagine would be better than patterns of human behavior that actually prevail? Just a question.)
David Henderson, writing here for Defining Ideas, offers an important lesson in fiscal history – one to which Keynesians should pay special attention. (I especially like David’s debunking of the “pent-up demand” hypothesis for explaining the post-WWII economic boom. That hypothesis has always struck me as being especially weak, even on Keynesianism’s own grounds. If I have time, I’ll soon post separately on this issue.)
Walter Grinder (by e-mail) reports that he “found this Spiked article [by Christopher Snowdon] to be a pretty good lesson in the politicization of civil society.” I agree with Walter.
