Come Study Economics at Grove City College

 Here is a short video that encapsulates much of why I love teaching economics at Grove City College:

 

The Division of Labor and Social Order

 I once again lectured at Mises University two weeks ago. My first lecture, "The Division of Labor and Social Order," is one I have done several times and contributes to my latest book The Economics of Prosperity. The main thesis of my lecture is that the market division of labor, far from being a source of social conflict, significantly contributes to the formation of society by contributing to economic prosperity via increases in productivity and by encouraging each participant to serve as well as be served by others.  You can watch the lecture here:

 

Producers, Not Consumers, Are the Engine of Economic Growth

"Producers, not consumers, are the engine of economic growth. Obviously, a producer must produce goods and services in line with what other producers require." So says Frank Shostak, and he is right! My new book, The Economics of Prosperity is an effort to explain the implications of this.

 As I put it: 

At the risk of sounding simplistic, an economic fact established since the beginning of economic thought is that wealth results from production. . . If wealth is a result of production, economic progress requires increases in productivity. Economic theory identifies four sources of economic progress: the division of labor, capital accumulation, technical improvement, and wise entrepreneurship. 

If we desire economic prosperity, we need institutions and a culture that fosters these things, not policies that incite consumption.

The Economics of Prosperity

 

I am happy to announce that my book, The Economics of Prosperity: Rethinking Economic Growth and Development is being published later this month by Edward Elgar Publishing. You can access the publisher's webpage for the book by clicking here.

 

If you prefer a pdf of a flyer for the book, you can click here.

More Tricks, Fewer Treats

 That is what Almost Daily Grant's is predicting for Halloween this year. Candy prices are up by 13% compared to last year, the largest annual increase on record. Because of general inflation, households are expected to decrease their total spending on candy. As explained in its commentary:

Talk about a sugar high.  Citing data from the Labor Department, The Wall Street Journal relays that candy prices are up 13% from a year ago, the largest one-year increase on record, owing to galloping labor costs along with flour and sugar prices.

 

Consumers are responding to those surging costs with a modest downshift, as the National Retail Federation reckons that households will average $100 in Halloween-related spending this year. That’s down from last year’s $103 outlay. 

 

More tricks, fewer treats: it’s a type of hedonic adjustment.

Spending slightly less on candy when its price is higher, means fewer units are purchased, so the kiddies will have less to enjoy.

Ritenour at the Center for Political and Economic Thought

Last month I was blessed to lecture at the Center for Political and Economic Thought at Saint Vincent College. The very good people at the Center were kind and encouraging and the students were engaging. My thanks to Mary Beth McConahey and Zachary Davis for the invitation and hospitality. I had a great time.

My lecture entitled "Do God and Economic Science Mix?" explained the biblical foundations of economics, discussed the economics of prosperity, and shed some light on the Christian ethic of property and its implications for economic policy. You can watch the lecture here:

Hans Sennholz

Today is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Hans Sennholz. He was one of four students in the US to receive their PhD directed by Ludwig von Mises. In a large way, he is responsible for my being at Grove City College. He was hired by J. Howard Pew to be the Chairman of the Department of Economics at GCC in 1956 and he remained here until 1992. He established the tradition of Austrian economics at Grove City, which is why we continue to specialize in the humane way to do economics even in this day in which we live.

I was blessed to hear a few lectures by Sennholz given after he retired. Here is one recorded while he was in his prime. Notice he is doing the whole thing without notes:

 

Fuller on the Tom Woods Show

My friend and colleague, Caleb Fuller, recently appeared on the Tom Woods Show discussing his new book No Free Lunch. While I have not investigated the matter exhaustively I venture to guess that the Grove City College Economics program is the only one in country that has achieved 100 percent representation on the Tom Woods Show! Listen, learn, and buy the book:

Loury on the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

 Glenn Loury, the distinguished economist at Brown University and host of  The Glenn Show, recently presented provocatively stark words about the persistence of racial inequality in America. After his remarks, presented to an academic group at Baylor University, he participates in a Q & A facilitated by my friend and Chair of the Baylor's Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Peter G. Klein.

 

Gordon on Fuller's No Free Lunch

David Gordon reviews No Free Lunch, the new book by my colleague Caleb Fuller. In his assessment, he praises Fuller noting that, in his analysis of economic falacies, he "follows Frédéric Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt, and he is a worthy successor of them." Gordon says the work itself is "an ideal book for introductory economics classes and for anyone who wants to understand how the free market works." High praise. 

Mises at Harvard

 In 1940, soon after Mises arrived in the United States, he was invited by the Economics Department at Harvard University to give a lecture to their graduate students. E. H. Chamberlin wrote the letter inviting him to speak. 

Dear Dr. von Mises:

            The Department of Economics at Harvard would like to offer their graduate students the privilege of meeting you and hearing you while you are in this country. Would it be possible for you to speak at Harvard on the evening of either December 5 or December 12? If so, I should be glad to receive from you suggestions as to possible subjects. We should hope, too, that you would be able to remain in Cambridge for a day or so in order to give students and others a chance to talk with you informally. An honorarium of $100 will be paid (from which you would be expected to meet your own travelling expenses).

            I very much hope you will be able to accept this invitation.

Sincerely yours,

 

E. H. Chamberlin

 You can read Mises' reply by clicking here.

Fuller on No Free Lunch

 My former student and now colleague Caleb Fuller has written a new book, No Free Lunch, that is both readable and insightful. He dismantles economic myths people still believe, which makes his book well suited to our time.

As Fuller relates in an interview discussing the book and why it is important,

Economics is deadly serious business. For many people in the modern world and throughout history, getting the economics right means the difference between life and death. Inspired by Hazlitt and Frederic Bastiat before him, I wanted to communicate the basic principles of economics, and what it tells us about human flourishing, to a new generation.

Supply-Chain Shortage or Merely Central Planning?

 John Tamny says Central planning:

The supply lines of February 2020 were impossibly complicated structures that no politician could ever hope to design. Think billions of individuals around the world pursuing their narrow work specialization on the way to enormous global plenty. Put another way, the shelves in economically free countries were heaving with all manner of products based on economic cooperation that was staggering in scope. Brilliant as some experts claim to be, and brilliant as some politicians think they are as they look in the mirror, they could never construct the web of trillions of economic relationships that prevailed before the lockdowns. But they could destroy the web. And they did; that, or they severely impaired it.

You can read the rest by clicking here.

If you are interested in a thorough theoretical critique of a variety of forms of central planning, I recommend Hans-Hermann Hoppe's A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism.

Tax the Rich!

That is the cry splashed in red on the back of the dress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sported at the Metropolitan Opera's opening Gala. The is another manifestation of what Mises called the anti-capitalistic mentality. 

 It turns out, of course, that we are already taxing the rich:

 

According the Tax Foundation, in 2018 the top 50% of income earners pay slightly over 97% of all tax revenue. The top 10% of income earners pay over 71% of taxes. The top 1% pay over 40% of all taxes. Meanwhile, those in the bottom half of income earners paid a mere 2.9% of the taxes taken in by the government in 2018.