Perfect Equality and Extreme Despotism

From Main Currents of Marxism by Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009): Marx took over the romantic ideal of social unity, and Communism realized it in the only way feasible in an industrial society, namely, by a despotic system of government. Continue Reading...

Natural Resources are Human Resources

If the PowerBlog has a favorite atheist libertarian economist, it’s probably George Mason professor Don Boudreaux. Although he isn’t a believer, he sometimes stumbles upon what I would consider to be Christian insights. Continue Reading...

How the Quality of Marriages Affects a Country’s Economy

The quality of children and our future society, depends directly on the quality of the marriage of their parents, says Pat Fagan of the Family Research Council speaking at the recent World Congress of Families: Fagan notes that society is made up of five facets: the family, church, school, the marketplace and government. Continue Reading...

How to Measure an Economy

Among the most significant economic challenges in America today is getting Americans to understand what an economy is. When the Latin term oeconomia was first used in the 1500s it meant “household management.” Continue Reading...

The Problem With ‘Buy American’

The call to “buy American” is one we hear frequently or see plastered on the bumper of the car in front of us. Donald Boudreaux, senior economics advisor at Mercatus Center, explains the problem with this ideal in a letter to the Washington Post: Let’s make a deal.  Continue Reading...

How Did the Global Poverty Rate Halve in 20 Years?

From 1990 to 2010, the global poverty rate dipped from 43% to 21%. The Economist explains why the rate halved in twenty years: How did this happen? Presidents and prime ministers in the West have made grandiloquent speeches about making poverty history for fifty years. Continue Reading...

Dirt and Development

“We poverty junkies spend a lot of time examining the fruits and the roots,” says Mark Weber at PovertyCure, “But what of the soil?” Tyler Cowen also recently noted that economists don’t talk nearly enough about soil, despite their contributing to some of the biggest problems in the entire world. Continue Reading...