August 25 of 2016 is the centennial of the U. S. Park Service. It was one of the great and largely successful experiments of the Progressive Era reformers. This experiment has evolved as science, culture, demography, and the economy changed. Over the past year FREE has explored this evolution of ideas, ideals, and environmental […]
Read MoreI recently received an announcement of a forthcoming book, Debunking Utopia. Its author, Nima Sanandaji, Ph. D., is Kurdish-Swedish and has written Scandinavian Unexceptionalism and The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox. He is the president of the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (www.ecepr.org). He began with this: The Nordic countries are used by Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and […]
Read MorePart I Ramona and I arrived in Portugal the day after Great Britain voted to leave the EU. While we can’t know the economic implications of Brexit, this rejection of Brussels surely demonstrates dissatisfaction with bureaucratic impositions on daily life. Especially during peaceful times, people resent command-and-control government. Generally, most people try to […]
Read MoreRamona and I are traveling through Portugal observing the culture and economy of Lisbon and Porto. We are in route to give lectures at the University of Aix en Provence in France arriving in Lisbon the day after the Brexit vote to leave the EU. People here were far more interested in the European soccer games. I […]
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John and Ramona are in Europe presenting a series of talks on the creation and dissemination of the New Resource Economics, the NRE. They and other professors at MSU developed the NRE approach to environmental policy in the 1970s and as their invitation to speak in Europe indicates, it flourishes today. The NRE emphasizes […]
Read MoreJohn and Ramona are leaving for Europe to present a series of talks on the creation and dissemination of the New Resource Economics, the NRE. They and other professors at MSU developed the NRE approach to environmental policy in the 1970s and as their invitation to speak in Europe indicates, it flourishes today. The NRE emphasizes […]
Read MoreHere is a true, empirical, universal generalization: Citizens in large and complex societies become dissatisfied when their government seizes and transfers wealth to prospective voters. Such allocations are partially, sometimes entirely, based on political calculations. Whatever the claims and justifications, over time benefits tend to flow toward the wealthy and politically powerful. And […]
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My economist friends often stress the efficiency losses when government favors powerful interests. Alas, these friends discount the accompanying decay of trust. Such erosion naturally follows when democratic governments allocate wealth and opportunities. This sorry process is pronounced in large, complex, heterogeneous societies. That corrosive, trust-reducing process is increasingly evident in America and other […]
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Today many sincere conservationists and environmentalists recognize that responsible liberty and modest prosperity foster sustainable ecology. They understand that poverty is a terrible polluter and that liberty is a requisite for environmental entrepreneurship. Further, good intentions are most effective when incentives promote responsible behavior. This is great progress. Thinking ahead, here is a theme for […]
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Entrepreneurs are chefs who provide society with free lunches. They take known resources and arrangements and discover new ways to employ them. By doing so they increase wellbeing. Environmental entrepreneurs serve society and preserve ecology by increasing the efficiency of resource use. These environmental entrepreneurs create exceptions to the famous TANSTAAFL principle of simplistic economics. […]
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