Elinor (Lin) Ostrom of Indiana University was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics. Lin died June 12th after diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late 2011. Following her diagnosis she traveled to India and Mexico, and taught a graduate seminar. Having known her for 45 plus years, I was not surprised by […]
Read More
Our nation is rapidly approaching a point from which there’s little chance to avoid a financial collapse. The heart of our problem can be seen as a tragedy of the commons. That’s a set of circumstances when something is commonly owned and individuals acting rationally in their own self-interest produce a set of results that’s […]
Read More
This summer FREE is hosting two seminars for seminary professors, other academics involved with religion, and federal judges. The July program will examine environmental and social justice and will include an excursion to Butte, America. What can we learn about booms, busts, and revitalization from the Butte experience? What does and can religion contribute during […]
Read More
On the differences between Social Darwinism and laissez-faire economics. President Obama’s recent speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors signaled the opening of a political gambit in the upcoming presidential election. In dealing with the proposed budget of Representative Paul Ryan, the president sought to discredit nineteenth-century laissez-faire economics by linking that movement to […]
Read MoreFREE Insights and Innovations This FREE Insights introduces two innovations. First is the addition of a day-long excursion during our July and August seminars. The July program, “Faith, Political Economy, and Social Justice: Lessons from Butte, America” includes a day in Butte with experts on its history, decline, and renewal. The August seminar is “Faith, […]
Read More
There are moments when our political system, whose essential job is to mediate conflicts in broadly acceptable and desirable ways, is simply not up to the task. It fails. This may be one of those moments. What we learned in 2011 is that the frustrating and confusing budget debate may never reach a workable conclusion. […]
Read MoreWhy Ed Crane Matters This FREE Insight “Why Ron Paul Matters” from the December 31st issue of the Wall Street Journal is by Ed Crane, Founding President of the Cato Institute. Cato is a highly principled libertarian think tank that moved to DC nearly thirty years ago and proved Milton Friedman wrong, a most rare […]
Read MoreHere’s a sketch of America’s economic prospects. Essentially, we’re seeing the consequences of 50 plus years of near libertarian tax rates and socialist benefits. Federal taxes were 17.8 percent of GNP in 1960. By 2007 they had risen less than one percent to 18.5 percent. However, there was a great deal of fraud and abuse […]
Read More
From The Bozeman Daily Chronicle Wednesday, November 16, 2011 Is it just me or do people in the “Occupy” movement seem mostly interested in occupying their time? They’d be better off trying to occupy that vast empty space between their ears; but why bother when someone will give you a slogan and armband for free. […]
Read More
Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) was founded in Switzerland in 1947 by Frederic Hayek, a young Milton Friedman, and 35 other scholars, mostly economists. They met to discuses the growth of governmental intrusion and the future of classical liberalism. MPS had a strong commitment to responsible liberty but not to any political party. “Its sole objective […]
Read More