Bob reacts to Bryan Caplan’s current views, arguing that the history of economic thought is indeed important, and the Misesian approach to praxeology is crucial.
The election of Donald Trump has revived debate about tariffs and their effects. Austrian economists point out that the damage tariffs impose is not limited to increasing consumer prices. They also create major distortions in the markets.
In 1923 Lenin released a propaganda pamphlet titled Down with the Private Kitchen. It explained how private dinners with one’s family are reactionary, bourgeois, and generally something requiring total destruction.
When government agents intervene into the economy, they do so without even understanding how market processes work in the first place. This lack of knowledge makes things even worse, as regulators are not even aware of the damage they are causing.
In the early years, the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony adopted a 17th-century form of socialism and nearly starved to death. They had little to be thankful for until they gave up on dreams of utopia and turned to markets instead.
In this episode, Ryan McMaken takes a look at how the domestic and commercial rituals of the Thanksgiving holiday are things that communists really don‘t like.
