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.

Filter posts by category

An Interview with Gigi Foster, Warrior Against Lockdowns

By / / , / 49 minute read / Video/Podcast
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Gigi Foster, economic professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, is co-author of The Great Covid Panic (Brownstone Institute, 2021) and a fierce opponent of lockdowns and mandates that have caused so much damage to Australia’s economy and long-standing tradition of human rights. Jeffrey Tucker of Brownstone interview her in this detailed interview, as her book is growing in influence in Australia and around the world. 

An Interview with Gigi Foster, Warrior Against Lockdowns Read Journal Article

Governments Broke the Supply Chains

By / / / 5 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

While politicians couldn’t ever create or legislate billions working together around the world, they could and can surely break voluntary economic arrangements. When you have guns, handcuffs, the power to quite literally shut off power sources to the productive, not to mention the wealth produced by the productive, you have the power to impose command-and-control.

Governments Broke the Supply Chains Read Journal Article

The Origins and Development of Upside-down America

By / / , , / 17 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

We have called this Progressive Fascism because at bottom it turns the very idea of America upside-down by subordinating the citizen to the state and by attaining the collective good through the centralized exercise of political power rather than the liberty-based endeavors of a free people.

The Origins and Development of Upside-down America Read Journal Article

tyranny

The Truth About Tyranny

By / / , , , , / 8 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Any regime that wants to stay in power needs to know this secret to hegemony: the desire to cleanse society of the enemy is what compels compliance. Every tyranny in history has depended on recruits to its own ranks from within the culture. They believe the lie knowing full well that it is a lie. The lie allows them to participate in the purge. They become the willing executioners. It’s been true throughout history, regardless of the particular and shifting desiderata of the despotism of the moment. 

The Truth About Tyranny Read Journal Article

How Close Is Total Social and Economic Collapse?

By / / , , , / 8 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

How does all this end? It doesn’t end. History rolls forward in the current direction of decline so long as no one is there to stand athwart it and yell stop and reverse course. How bad must it get before human rationality and reason take over from political egos and careerist duplicity? We are going to find out in the next 12 months. It’s going to be a very long winter, as two weeks to flatten the curve gradually and painfully turns into three years of remarkable and wholly preventable wreckage. 

How Close Is Total Social and Economic Collapse? Read Journal Article

The Madness of Crowds: Podcast with Gigi Foster

By / / , , , / 1 minute of reading / Video/Podcast
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Gigi Foster, professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, is author of The Great Covid Panic (Brownstone, 2012). She has been granting interviews all over Australia and New Zealand, in addition to other countries around the world. You can hear her views in this fascinating podcast.

The Madness of Crowds: Podcast with Gigi Foster Read Journal Article

The Fight for Civilization: Two Interviews with Jeffrey Tucker

By / / , / 2 minute read / Video/Podcast
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

SHARE | PRINT | EMAILTwo lengthy interviews with Brownstone founder and president are now online. The first is with the Bill Walton show, and the second is with journalist and author Robin Koerner. Excerpts from the above: “We’ve dealt with pandemics in the past. In the modern age and the 20th

The Fight for Civilization: Two Interviews with Jeffrey Tucker Read Journal Article

Is This Becoming a General Strike?

By / / , , / 11 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

We had better hope and pray that the anger against the government and the ruling class does not ultimately turn against the free economy itself. In order for that not to happen, the intellectual opposition to the current regime needs to get its thinking straight, give up its old habits, see the current struggle for what it is, and start celebrating the freedom of everyone. 

Is This Becoming a General Strike? Read Journal Article

Labor Markets: Bruised, Battered, and Broken by Lockdowns and Mandates

By / / , , / 6 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

It’s tremendously sad to see a whole nation slip so far so fast into decline, as evidenced by the latest labor-market data that has profoundly impacted the most vulnerable. It is easily reversible but we seem to lack the wisdom and courage that would be required to turn this around. 

Labor Markets: Bruised, Battered, and Broken by Lockdowns and Mandates Read Journal Article

Biden’s Vaccination Mandate: Where Are the Regulations?

By / / , , / 7 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

It’s true that Biden does not have the power to impose that directly but he might have the power to order a regulatory body under his authority to write rules that amount to the same thing. And even if the regulatory agency never gets around to it, the perception that the order is real and enforceable is enough to cause the outcome he desires. 

Biden’s Vaccination Mandate: Where Are the Regulations? Read Journal Article