Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Amity Shlaes distinguishes the true forgotten man from the trumped-up “forgotten man.” The latter, at best, is a mascot for people peddling bad economics, and, too often, a member of a special-interest group seeking government assistance in picking other people’s pockets. This latter “forgotten man” is ever front-and-center in the minds of rent-creating and rent-distributing politicians.
Thomas Sowell is correct that lots of American politicians who boast of their anger at the state of race relations in the U.S. owe their political success to policies that ensure that race relations in the U.S. are never ‘harmonious’ (or recognized as such). One such policy, although Sowell doesn’t mention it here, is minimum-wage legislation – perhaps the single most anti-black legislation today in the U.S. The ‘war on drugs’ is the only other cruel contender for this awful distinction. (For the pointer to Sowell’s essay I thank Dwight Oglesby)
Marian Tupy explains that Africa is growing economically due to freer markets.
My friend Rick Lowe reminds me that I likely have never posted at Cafe Hayek my 2003 review of the first English-language edition of Johan Norberg’s great 2001 book, In Defense of Global Capitalism. (The Cato Institute, in 2003, published an updated version of this still-relevant book.)
Matt Welch is unimpressed by the unimpressive Bernie Sanders – someone who I earlier described, I believe correctly, as having the economics of a toddler and the ethics of a thug. (HT Yevdokiya Zagumenova)
