Economics

Economics articles featuring analysis of the global censorship industrial complex, impacts on public health, free trade, liberty, and policy.

All Brownstone Institute economics articles are translated into multiple languages.

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freedom to travel

The End of the Freedom to Travel 

By / / , , / 8 minute read / Articles
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Recent history and current events clearly demonstrate that it is no longer a question of “is this possible” but a question of “when.” We the People must hold our public servants accountable. We must not let them strip us of our freedoms by complying when asked, “Papers, please.” We must not let division creep in under the guise of public health when We the People are healthier together. Vax passes must not pass.

The End of the Freedom to Travel  Read Journal Article

US economy

Guess What Is Keeping the US Economy Afloat 

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With no commensurate increase in the demand for money, the expansion in money supply created by American money-printing leads to all existing dollars buying fewer goods than before the money-printing. Nobody sends a bill: the tax just happens, with every clank of the government printing press. Doubling the amount of money in circulation via the printing press, and then giving the printed money to the government to buy stuff with, is basically the same as the government taxing half of private-sector income and buying stuff with it.

Guess What Is Keeping the US Economy Afloat  Read Journal Article

banking

The Politicization of Banking and the End of Freedom

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Banks would then become instruments of political persecution and totalitarian groupthink instead of institutions devoted to the provision of banking services to the citizenry at large. The price of political dissent would become far too high for many citizens. The public square would quickly degenerate into an echo-chamber of opinions approved by the banking establishment. 

The Politicization of Banking and the End of Freedom Read Journal Article

job market and employment

Two States, Two Job Markets

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It’s well known that employment has impacts on not just an individual’s economic outlook, but their health as well. The idea that we could have somehow suppressed the economy in favor of preventing mortality and impact to health was a false tradeoff. The cost of destroying livelihoods has impacts to health and life expectancy.

Two States, Two Job Markets Read Journal Article

Corporatism

A Genealogy of Corporatism

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Corporatism abolishes the competitive dynamic of competitive capitalism and replaces it with cartels run by oligarchs. It reduces growth and prosperity. It is invariably corrupt. It promises efficiency but yields only graft. It expands the gaps between rich and poor and creates and entrenches deep fissures between the rulers and ruled. It dispenses with localism, religious particularism, rights of families, and aesthetic traditionalism. It also ends in violence.

A Genealogy of Corporatism Read Journal Article

stakeholder capitalism

Stakeholder Capitalism is an Oxymoron

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Stakeholder capitalism inevitably creates a tyranny of minorities, and especially highly ideological minorities (because a shared ideology reduces the cost of organizing). Minority stakeholders will succeed in expropriating majority ones. Minority tyranny is the big problem with democratic politics. Extending it to vast swathes of economic life is a nightmare. 

Stakeholder Capitalism is an Oxymoron Read Journal Article

threats to liberty

Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed by Lockdowns 

By / / , , , / 14 minute read / Articles
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If you haven’t changed your thinking over the last three years, you are a prophet, indifferent, or asleep. Much has been revealed and much has changed. To meet these challenges, we must do so with our eyes wide open. The greatest threats to human liberty today are not the ones of the past and they elude easy ideological categorization. Further, we have to admit that in many ways the plain human desire to live a fulfilling life in freedom has been subverted. If we want our freedoms back, we need to have a full understanding of the frightening challenges before us. 

Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed by Lockdowns  Read Journal Article

economic thinking

The Economics of Lockdown Panics

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Economics alone cannot tell us if any cost is too much to “save one life.” But economic thinking can help us understand that preserving human life entails bearing costs. It requires resources and people with skills. We must provide ourselves with the means to bear those costs if we wish to continue to have the ability to preserve human life in the future. 

The Economics of Lockdown Panics Read Journal Article

industrial cartel

How Lockdowns Bolstered an Industrial Cartel

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The introduction of digital commerce in the late 20th century threatened a new age of commercial freedom that came to a screeching halt with the lockdowns of 2020. In this sense, lockdowns were not “progressive” at all but profoundly conservative in the old-fashioned sense of the term. It was an establishment fighting to preserve and entrench its power. Perhaps that was the whole point all along. 

How Lockdowns Bolstered an Industrial Cartel Read Journal Article

jobs for teens

The Best Life Lesson for a Teen Is a Job 

By / / / 8 minute read / Articles
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During the Covid debacle, kids were locked out of school or otherwise condemned to an inferior Zoom education for up to two years. What were the alternatives? Unfortunately, since the New Deal, the federal government has severely restricted teenagers’ opportunities for gainful employment. But new evidence proves that keeping kids out of work doesn’t keep them out of mental health trouble. 

The Best Life Lesson for a Teen Is a Job  Read Journal Article