Tom G. Palmer has written a great, fairly short, paper for this year’s Mont Pelerin Society Meeting entitled “Twenty Myths About Markets.”

I think Palmer does a very good job of addressing, and often re-framing, many popular misconceptions about markets that most people just assume are true because they’re repeated so often.

Andrew Coulson has been taking a lot of heat for his recent posts (see here,
here, and here) at Cato@Liberty opposing the ideas promoted by many that there should be a science curriculum imposed by the federal government on all public schools that teaches evolution as the only scientific theory of human
origins.

Coulson agrees (as do I) that evolution is the best explanation available for human origins. Where he differs from his critics is that he also recognizes political problems with the central imposition of controversial curriculum on all public schools. As he argues, it’s “Illiberal, undemocratic, divisive, ineffective, and counter-productive.”

I’m very sympathetic to complaints of those who argue that public money shouldn’t be spent teaching anything but the best science in science classes. If they’d like, I can give them a really long list of other things I’m pained to see public money spent on.

But, the question, for me, is not: “What’s the best science?” The question, for me, is: “What’s the best mechanism for people to learn things?” Is it likely to be the result of a centrally-planned political process, or a free, distributed, process that allows for competition and, yes, evolution? As my post-title suggests, it’s ironic that those who want to promote evolution seem to underestimate the power of diverse and competing processes to produce results better than anyone could have planned; and they seem to think the only way to get the right result is to make sure it’s designed by experts.

Another irony is that these people seem to have a religious faith in the virtue of government officials to always use their power to do what’s best, rather than what is politically expedient. If they think that the scientific evidence supports this position, then their epistemology is no better than that of the people they ridicule.

I just came across this video of Bjørn Lomborg in 2005 talking about the results of his Copenhagen Consensus project prioritzing what to do about the world’s large problems.

Lomborg is always a breath of fresh air.

It’s tiresome to keep hearing people talking about problems and never about the costs and benefits of proposed solutions.

I found it interesting that acting along Kyoto Protocol lines to prevent climate change problems came out at the bottom of the list.

Even if we stipulate that global warming is a serious problem, and that it’s largely human caused (two stipulations that I’m still skeptical about), it doesn’t go anywhere towards answering the question about what we should do about it, if anything.

I do like the idea of fairly small prizes to help motivate clever people to discover successful solutions to big problems, though. So, I’ve got no problem with Richard Branson offering this prize.

I know it’s late, but I made it in time.

If there was ever a person who deserved to be honored, it’s Milton Friedman.

With the Democrats controlling Congress, we’re going to be hearing a lot of complaints about the “trade deficit” and attempts to address it with legislation.

Whenever americans trade, they become wealthier. Trade is good. The trade deficit is not debt, and it’s not a problem. If anything, it’s a sign of the health of our economy and its attractiveness to foreign investors.

There is debt involved, but most of it is caused by the government spending too much; not by americans buying too many foreign goods and services.

Of course, there are often some people who are temporarily worse off because of some specific trades. These effects occur whenever people change their buying habits. Are we going to outlaw that, too? All human action has consequences. We shouldn’t stop doing things that make us all better off, generally, because some people won’t be able to carry on exactly as they had before!

You can learn all you need to know about this by reading Don Boudreaux’s February 2006 TCS Daily article, or his recent letter to Lou Dobbs, or his many great blog posts on trade.

Ilya  Somin, Julian Sanchez, and others seem to be in agreement with Bruce Bartlett’s thesis that the Libertarian Party does more harm than good for the cause of actually enacting libertarian policies.

I’ve been a member of the Libertarian Party for many years, and I’ve often voted for Libertarian candidates. I appreciate having an avenue for expressing my political preferences at the ballot box more clearly than I could with a vote for either major party candidate. I have certainly been dissappointed by many of the candidates and policies of the Libertarian Party, but I guess I never really expected brilliant competence, or quick major electoral victories. I always thought the political landscape to be better with the LP than without, if for no other reason than many people might learn of the libertarian alternative to traditional left or right alliances. Also, there’s always been the hope that the LP would help to cause many libertarian policies to be adopted by major parties (as has been said of the Socialist Party). A major shift towards libertarianism will not happen until there’s a major cultural shift that embraces the ideas of individual liberty more consistently.

It’s certainly true that some of the resources used to promote the Libertarian Party would otherwise be used to promote liberty via the two major parties. But, overall, I’m not so sure that the cause of libertarian policy would be better off without the LP.

One interesting idea from Bartlett is this:

In place of the LP, there should arise a new libertarian interest group organized like the National Rifle Association or the various pro- and anti-abortion groups. This new group, whatever it is called, would hire lobbyists, run advertisements and make political contributions to candidates supporting libertarian ideas. It will work with both major parties. It can magnify its influence by creating temporary coalitions on particular issues and being willing to work with elected officials who may hold libertarian positions on only one or a handful of issues. They need not hold libertarian views on every single issue, as the LP now demands of those it supports.

The Club For Growth seems to be off to a good start at this idea; at least in the economic-liberty arena. Are there other libertarian-leaning organizations like this?

Another trip around the sun completed.

Whew!

I had to sign some HR documents today. One of them, a non-disclosure agreement, ended with this line:

I have read this agreement before signing it, and I acknowledge receipt of a signed copy.

How can I acknowledge receipt of a signed copy? I haven’t signed it yet! If I sign it, I’ll be lying won’t I?

Well, I thought it was kind of funny. But, so far, I’m the only one.

Sorry I haven’t blogged much lately.

I’m still alive, and I still intend to blog. It’s just that I started a new job last week, and I’ve been focused on things related to that for the past few weeks.

Hopefully things will settle down soon, and I’ll have more to blog about.

So, keep checking in.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” series, you’re in luck.

It’s now available for streaming at ideachannel.tv.

You should be able to watch it all long before Milton Friedman Day on January 29th.

Spread the news!

(HT Tom Palmer)