Russell Roberts's Blog, page 1429

Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 101 of Will Durant's 1935 book Our Oriental Heritage:

Moral progress in history lies not so much in the improvement of the moral code as in the enlargement of the area within which it is applied.

Complex Society and Avoiding Simplistic Notions

On the complexity of society and social sciences – here's my latest column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Murray Was No Milton

George Selgin weighs in wisely on the issue of Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and monetary theory.

Damn those Innovators!

Here's a letter to the New York Times:

Union president Joseph Hansen accuses Wal-Mart of unleashing economic destruction because its innovative retail methods make available at lower prices a wider range of goods – goods that, to be brought to retail markets in the past, required greater numbers of higher-skilled (and, hence, higher paid) workers (Letters, July 28).

In short, Mr. Hansen criticizes innovation that enables us to enjoy more and better outputs from fewer and less-valuable inputs.

To be consistent, Mr. Hansen should also criticize those innovations that, say, improved the quality of televisions and, as a result, destroyed the jobs of t.v. repairmen.  Likewise he ought to condemn advances in digital photography that enable amateur photographers today to produce high-quality photographs that once required the skills of professional photographers.  And of course Mr. Hansen should protest the polio vaccine for enabling people to survive and move about without the help of workers who produce iron-lung machines, wheel-chairs, and crutches.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Specialization and Trade

Here's the PowerPoint presentation that I used for my second lecture at the 2011 Cato University (held this year, btw, in one of my favorite towns: Annapolis, MD).

Because of several questions that I received after my first lecture, I began this second lecture with a brief review of the state of manufacturing in America.  I used several of the great graphs that Mark Perry made available over the past few years at Carpe Diem.  Of course, in my verbal remarks I explicitly acknowledged that these graphs are from Carpe Diem – and I encouraged the attendees to check out that indispensable blog.

Then I reviewed, first, Adam Smith's explanation of the benefits of specialization, and, second, David Ricardo's explanation (the principle of comparative advantage).  I also combined Smith with Ricardo.

I concluded – after some too-quick remarks on various theories of the industrial revolution – by encouraging the attendees to read Deirdre McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity.

Paying college athletes

Great piece from Sports Illustrated on why it's a good idea.

Good luck to Team Hayek

In a few minutes, at the LSE, George Selgin and Jamie Whyte will be representing Hayek's views contra the Keynesians represented by Duncan Weldon and Robert Skidelsky. You can warm up by watching Fight of the Century. It will air on the BBC tomorrow and if the audio becomes available, we'll post it here at the Cafe.

Stagnating Middle-Class?

Here's a PowerPoint presentation that I gave as part of a lecture that I delivered today at Cato University.   It's an updated version of these two posts – here and here – on shopping today in a Fall/Winter 1975 Sears catalog.

In this presentation, I calculate how many hours each non-supervisory worker earning the average nominal hourly wage of such workers had to work in 1975 to buy a variety of ordinary goods, and how many hours each non-supervisory worker earning the average nominal hourly wage of such workers must work in 2011 to buy similar (or, really, in almost every case far superior) or comparable goods.

Before starting this PowerPoint presentation, I showed this recent clip from Robert Reich – one of many, many instances of people insisting that ordinary Americans are no better off today (at least materially) than they were since just before the age of alleged laissez faire descended upon us circa 1980.

This presentation, of course, does not prove that middle-class Americans are today better off than were middle-class Americans of the 1970s.  Other factors must be controlled for and considered and factored in.  But this presentation, I fancy, does strongly suggest that the oft-heard claim of middle-class stagnation should bear a much heavier burden of proof than it seems to bear in popular discussions.

Book Facts

Here's a letter to the Boston Globe:

James Carroll interprets Borders bankruptcy as evidence that corporations' involvement over the past 20 years in book retailing has spawned "massive cultural impoverishment" in America ("As stores die, so does book culture," July 25).  With "sacred" independent booksellers destroyed by the "predatory capitalism" of big-box retailing (and now also by the "screen technologies" of e-books), Mr. Carroll is convinced that illiteracy and ignorance stalk the land.

The only evidence that Mr. Carroll gives for the demise of the book, however, is "the shrinking number of published book reviews" and "today's shallow political discourse."  Were Mr. Carroll actually to look at the data (Oh how cold and factual; fit only for a Gradgrind!) he'd find that the number of new titles and editions published in the U.S. has risen spectacularly over the past 20 years.  In 1990, 46,738 new book titles were published in the U.S.  In 2002 the number was 247,777; in 2005 it was 282,500, and in 2009 the total number of new titles and editions published in the U.S. was a whopping 1,335,475 – the last figure reflecting the huge increase in the number of e-books whose publication is made possible by the 'predatory capitalists' and the "screen technologies" that Mr. Carroll is so very certain keep Americans from reading.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Debt Ceiling

This week's EconTalk is with Keith Hennessey talking about the debt ceiling, the budget process, and what's going on behind closed doors. He is very clear and I learned a lot talking to him. You will, too.