Elizabeth Warren's Blank Check. Robert P. Murphy

Recently a video of Elizabeth Warren has gone viral, garnering more than half a million views in the first ten days. After lambasting the policies of the Bush administration, Warren goes on to critique the claim that rich people have a right to the income from their activities. Warren argues that it is only fair that the rich give back to the community (in the form of higher taxes), since they benefit from the government investments that made their financial success possible.

Warren's argument is wrong both on principle and in practical application. It's important to spell out exactlywhy she's wrong, because her viewpoint is gaining traction among the progressive Left. Besides the obvious popularity of Warren's statements, Robert Frank's hip new book is another example of this assault on conventional property rights.

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An Open Letter to Mayor Bloomberg. Robert Murphy

Via Francisco Capella.

Extract:

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

I read with interest that you (and fellow billionaire George Soros) are going to contribute millions of your own fortunes to supplement the tax dollars New York City's government will spend because "blacks and Latinos are not fully sharing in the promise of American freedom."

Yet rather than spending your own money — and that of the taxpayers — on retraining probation officers, posting job recruitment signs in government housing projects, and the other ideas mentioned in the New York Times article, you should consider much more effective ways to help young black and Latino men. As an added bonus, the following proposals would actuallyreduce government expenditures:

- Stop enforcing drug laws against nonviolent individuals. 

- Stop forcing/subsidizing kids to go to school.

- Don't prosecute business owners for paying less than the minimum wage.

- Cut spending and taxes. 

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The Economics of Discrimination by Robert P. Murphy

Last May, Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul said that he could not endorse all of the Civil Rights Act because it interfered with business owners' private property rights.1 Since then, pundits have been discussing business discrimination, but many of them are ignorant of the teachings of economics on the subject. As Gary Becker first explained systematically,2 the free market contains automatic penalties for the odious practices that most people have in mind when they deplore "discrimination." Ironically, it is powerful governments that historically commit the worst injustices against unpopular minorities.

Before exploring the economics of discrimination, we first need to distinguish the term from several related ones. For example, racism, bigotry, and prejudice refer to someone's beliefs; they are mental phenomena. In contrast, discrimination refers to an action. The two often go hand-in-hand...