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Here’s a letter that I sent on September 10^th to the New York Times:

Editor:

National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins testified yesterday that the decision to approve a covid-19 vaccine will be determined by “science and science alone” (“N.I.H. Director Has ‘Cautious Optimism’ for Covid-19 Vaccine by End of 2020,” Sept. 10). This claim, alas, is unscientific.

Science of course should play a major role. Only it can determine a vaccine’s likely medical effectiveness and side effects. But science cannot possibly determine what is the acceptable amount of risk to be traded off against reward. Should approval be given to a vaccine that’s 98 percent effective but which carries a 0.05 percent chance of causing serious and possibly fatal illness? What about a vaccine that’s 90 percent effective but which carries a 0.002 percent chance of causing seriously illness or death?

The need to answer such questions is unavoidable. And so given government’s role in the drug-approval process, any and all decisions to approve or disapprove must, inevitably, be made politically.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

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… is from page 130 of the 1985 (3rd) edition of the late Ralph Raico’s translation of Ludwig von Mises’s great 1927 book, Liberalism:

The theoretical demonstration of the consequences of the protective tariff and of free trade is the keystone of classical economics. It is so clear, so obvious, so indisputable, that its opponents were unable to advance any arguments against it that could not be immediately refuted as completely mistaken and absurd.

DBx: And so the matter remains to this day. There is no argument – not one – that purports to show that protectionism promotes economic prosperity for ordinary people better than does free trade that a competent economist cannot squash as easily as someone with a fly-swatter can squash an obese housefly.

The difference, sadly, is that the will to believe in the efficacy of protectionism is so potent that many people will gaze upon the motionless, flattened insect and insist that it remains not only alive and vibrant, but also is as beautiful as a butterfly, as powerful as an eagle, and as majestic as Pegasus.

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… is from page 279 of Kristian Niemietz’s marvelous 2019 book, Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies:

We take it for granted that living standards rise over time. For most of history, they did not. This trend only really began with the advent of industrial capitalism, which was a game changer in world history.

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Here’s Dan Griswold’s and my hot-off-the-press paper, “A Fresh Start for US Trade Policy: Unilateral Trade Liberalization through a Tariff Reform Commission.”

It’s a darn good paper. I can offer this assessment truthfully yet without immodesty because the great bulk of the paper was written by Dan.

Here’s the paper’s abstract:

The US tariff code stands as a barrier to reviving the US economy as it begins to recover from the coronavirus shutdown. Mounting evidence shows that statutory tariffs and the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration since 2018 are compounding the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 virus and are complicating the efforts of consumers and healthcare providers to access medical supplies. Executive action can mitigate some of the harm, but the US Constitution and the scope of the problem require congressional action. Such action should be taken unilaterally by the US government in its own national interest regardless of what actions other nations pursue. This paper recommends the establishment of a Tariff Reform Commission to enable Congress to overcome special-interest opposition to trade liberalization. The commission would be patterned after the successful Base Realignment and Closure process and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill process. It would follow the proven path taken by other nations that have unilaterally liberalized their trade policies.

…..

A sole-authored paper by me on the analytics of unilateral free is forthcoming from Mercatus (likely in a month or so).

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In the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Phil Gramm and GMU Econ alum Jerry Ellig rightly bemoan the misguided antitrust attack on successful tech companies. A slice:

Progressives want to use the antitrust laws to break up big tech companies because they believe that bigness is bad and leads to a host of other evils, including malign political influence. Conservatives want to use antitrust as a club to get social-media companies to curb their alleged political bias.

While there is a long and rich history of using antitrust laws to try to implement policies that proponents can’t enact into law, both parties would be wise to focus on consumer welfare, which has defined recent antitrust jurisprudence. No one can seriously challenge the hard evidence that big tech companies have delivered enormous consumer benefits. You don’t have to look any further than online shopping, smartphones and social networking.

Announcing the end of his long-running column for the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson decries the fiscal imprudence unleashed by majoritarian politics. A slice (original emphasis):

One of the pleasures of journalism is that you get to learn lots of new “stuff.” I have learned much from economists. With some exceptions, most are intelligent, informed, engaged and decent. In my experience, this truth spans the political spectrum. But it’s not the only truth.

Another is this: Economists consistently overstate how much they know about the economy and how easily they can influence it. They maintain their political and corporate relevance by postulating pleasant policies. Presidents claim the good and repudiate the bad. There are practical limits to how much economic growth and living standards can be accelerated and sustained.

Pierre Lemieux notes the reality of rational ignorance.

Jeffrey Tucker reports on the continuing scare-bias of the media.

Arnold Kling details the flaws that he sees in ‘critical’ theory.

Christian Britschgi reports on a U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania ruling that Pennsylvania’s lockdown order is unconstitutional. And here’s Stacey Rudin on the same. A slice from Rudin’s piece:

Thank you, Judge Stickman, for recognizing our predicament, and for taking the first step towards restoring our freedom today by reminding those with authoritarian leanings that “governors cannot be given carte blanche to disregard the Constitution for as long as the medical problem persists.” The response to an emergency cannot undermine our system of constitutional liberties, or the system of checks and balances protecting those liberties. Liberty before “governor-guaranteed safety” — this is the American way, famously stated by Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

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… is from page 56 of Michael Strain’s excellent 2020 book, The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It):

It is hard to know what to make of changes in wealth inequality over time. To see why, consider this example: Expanded social insurance and safety net programs for lower- and middle-income households reduce the need for those households to accumulate assets. This exacerbates wealth inequality because it increases the gap in asset holdings between high-wealth and low-wealth households.

DBx: This point is excellent, and it implies that a contributor to wealth inequality is government.

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Here’s my reply to Branko Milanović’s initial response to my opening essay at Pairagraph. I argue that there’s been no economic stagnation of America’s middle class; Prof Milanović disagrees (including in his reaction to my reply).

Here’s a slice from my reply to his initial response:

The question of whether and by how much economic inequality has risen recently differs from the question of whether or not ordinary Americans have economically stagnated. The latter question is about the trend in absolute living standards. Because the total amount of material wealth can and does grow, simple arithmetic reveals that everyone can become more prosperous even if economic inequality rises.

For the same reason, Americans can all grow wealthier even as foreigners do so.

As far as human experiences go, I disagree that my noting today’s widespread availability of goods and services that were nonexistent decades ago is absurd. The fact that wonders such as smartphones and Lasik surgery didn’t exist in the past does nothing to alter the fact that, if people today treasure having access these wonders, such access causes people’s material prosperity to be higher than it would be otherwise.

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Here’s the second in what will now be a three-part series on Covid and Coase, written for AIER, by Lyle Albaugh and me. A slice:

Consider an admittedly extreme possibility, but one that would provide to any individual who chooses it complete protection: wearing a hazmat suit when venturing into the company of other people. The wearer would be practically guaranteed never to become infected with the coronavirus.

Sounds impractical, extreme, and crazy, right? But is this option more impractical than bringing much of society to a screeching stop for an indefinite time? Is this option more extreme than granting to governments virtually unlimited police-state powers to suppress ordinary human engagements?

Is obliging the most fearful and susceptible among us to take their own precautions, including (if they wish) wearing a hazmat suit, crazier than preventing adults from going to work, children from going to school, and everyone from socializing in familiar ways?

Would a world in which some people stroll the streets wearing hazmat suits be more lunatic than a world in which Times Square is empty, sporting events are played in vacant arenas, kindergartners attend school online, and some governments recommend the wearing of masks during sex?

What about cost? IndustrialSafety.com sells hazmat suits for $200. Thus, supplying every man, woman, and child in America with a hazmat suit would cost just under $70 billion. Heck, let’s supply each American with two such suits, in case one breaks. $140 billion. This amount is less than ten percent of what the U.S. government alone directly spent through July in response to covid. And this $140 billion shrinks further into insignificance when we add in the costs of lost economic output, of lost social engagement, and of the lives of cancer patients and others lost because of the lockdowns.

Our point is not to recommend that everyone go to the extreme of donning a hazmat suit. It is instead to explain that government-orchestrated restrictions on social interaction are not the only or even the least costly means available for protecting people from the coronavirus. Each of us can protect ourselves individually, and at a cost that’s affordable.

The individualized option allows each individual to adjust his or her level of protection according to his or her personal risk preferences. People who are extremely averse to risk might choose to actually wear hazmat suits. Most people, however, would choose lesser degrees of protection – for example, wearing N95 masks and latex gloves, or voluntarily sheltering in place. People less risk-averse would choose lesser degrees of protection. Some individuals – those who judge the risk of being harmed by covid to be negligible – would be free to take no precautions at all.

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… is from page 182 of Kristian Niemietz’s superb 2019 book, Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies:

[T]he this-time-is-different claim is not remotely new. The idea that previous models of socialism were bad, but that the model which is currently in vogue represents a complete break from that, has a long history. Ever since Soviet socialism fell out of fashion, Western socialists have always explicitly defined the socialist model du jour in opposition to previous models. This time is always different – until it turns out that it was not so different after all.

DBx: Niemietz follows in the tradition of the late Paul Hollander in documenting the praise, then the excuses, and then, finally, the denials that leftist intellectuals emit about various socialist ‘experiments’ over the past century. (Niemietz acknowledges Hollander’s work and its importance, and cites him frequently.)

Likely in the future I’ll write a longer post on this matter, but one reality that struck me as I read, years ago, Hollander’s book and, more recently, Niemietz’s volume is just how creative and elastic is the human mind at rationalizing almost any belief. (Of course, neither David Hume nor Jonathan Haidt would be surprised.) It’s genuinely depressing to encounter throughout the works of Hollander and Niemietz quotation after quotation after quotation from various intellectuals about socialism – quotations predicting the earthly wonders socialism will bring but never does, quotations excusing the economic misery and authoritarianism that socialists promised would not arise but always do, and quotations insisting that this brilliant new ‘system’ or that courageous new ‘leader’ is nothing at all like any of the failed systems or corrupt and power-mad leaders of the past.