A New York Times article on young people and their attitudes towards government got plenty of play this week (on radio and TV, on the blogs, etc.) The headline tells the story well enough: “A Growing Trend: Young, Liberal, and Open to Big Government.” But you already knew that. So, what’s (sort of) new here? First, consider this quote regarding attitudes about what government should and should not do: “Young people absolutely believe that there’s a role for government,”…
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Columnist George F. Will has been arguing for a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution (see his January 9 entry, “ Time for a balanced-budget amendment “). At the heart of his argument are three essential points: 1) chronic, growing deficits and the level of accumulated debt are not economically sustainable, so something has to give; 2) tax revenues are not going to give, partly because of the economic reality of slowed growth and partly because of the political…
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Dutch economics professor and water expert, David Zetland,  has reviewed Madmen on his blog, Aguanomics . It is a favorable review (“I recommend as a text for ANY policy class and for ALL students of law, economics and politics.”) that goes chapter-by-chapter in describing our approach to understanding political change, as well as its implications for bringing about beneficial change. I tried in vain to select a paragraph to block quote here, because the entire review is insightful — including the footnotes!…
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As we observed in a  recent post on the February 2, 2013 issue of the Economist, the Nordic countries have been leading the world in a number of economic reforms. A short article in this issue continues exploring this theme and describes the role that has been played by new ideas about reform, especially those that reject traditional “left” or “right” perspectives.  Even more striking than the Nordic world’s commitment to balancing its books is its enthusiasm for experimenting…
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One of the main arguments in Madmen is that ideas don’t become implemented on their own; instead, multiple modes and levels of political entrepreneurship are needed for a different idea to defeat the twin forces that support any particular status quo: the power of vested interests on the one hand, and widespread, ingrained beliefs on the other hand. Many years of studying economics will convince someone that a litany of better ideas is readily available….
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The lead article from the February 2, 2013 edition of the Economist highlights Nordic countries as a case study in economic reform. The four main Nordic countries — Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland — have lessons to share, both in terms of the mistakes that got them into an economic mess and the policies they adopted to get out. The article begins by noting that the Nordic countries had remarkably high ratios of government spending as a share…
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In “ Symmetric Tragedies: Commons and Anticommons ,” James Buchanan and Yong Yoon discuss two ways that poorly defined property rights can cause inefficient resource use. The familiar tragedy of the commons can occur when rights to use a valuable resource are overassigned, which creates the incentives for overuse. For example, in this TED Talk (specifically minutes 0:00-3:30) Rob Harmon explains why rivers and streams throughout the country turn into dry creek beds every summer. Because water rights have historically evolved into a first-come,…
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This past weekend (January 24-27, 2013) marked the second annual gathering of the Antigua Forum.  Over 30 reformers from around the world gathered in Antigua, Guatemala to focus on one key theme: how to make market-liberal reform a reality in their countries. The participants at this year’s event included experienced reformers (e.g., former high-ranking officials), current reformers (those who are “in the trenches”), innovators working outside of the traditional political process (e.g., private education in…
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Matthew Needham, a senior politics major at Michigan State University and Executive Board member at Students for Liberty, has enthusiastically reviewed Madmen . An astute reader and conversant (I had the good fortune of meeting him last weekend in Toronto), Matthew concisely summarizes our framework for understanding political change, and then he draws attention to its implications–namely the theme of Chapter 7, “Assembling the Wisdom: What is to be done?” While their model emphasizes the role of academics and…
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Sorry for the light blogging of late. After last week’s Cato Book Forum , Wayne flew south to Guatemala to direct the annual Antigua Forum conference — a gathering of several dozen reformers (i.e., political entrepreneurs) from around the world. As for me, I flew north to the University of Toronto for a one-day seminar on Madmen sponsored by the Institute for Liberal Studies, and I’ve been putting in long hours organizing the 50th anniversary conference of the Public Choice Society. So, although Wayne and…
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