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Undergrads take note! Steve Horwitz is offering a monetary prize for best essay on a Doonesbury cartoon [2]. (But hurry!)
Jim DeLong’s new book – Ending ‘Big Sis’ – is out. I read it in manuscript form and recommend it highly [3]. (‘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 [4]. 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 [5] – 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 [6] [by Christopher Snowdon] to be a pretty good lesson in the politicization of civil society.” I agree with Walter.