Eucken's 'Social Market Economy' and Its Test in Post-War West Germany

A bstract . Walter Eucken's paradigm of a "social market economy" and "Ordnung" provides a framework for a functional free-market mechanism, which not only accommodates development and change, but which also assures human dignity and freedom, as cornerstones of the Kantian moral universe. Eucken places special emphasis on the integration of economics with "order" and "Justice ," in a synthesis of negative liberty and positive freedom and of Rawls' and Nozick's theories of justice. Adam Smith's laissez faire economy does not assure a competitive economy, he holds, and will evolve into monopolistic practices, interventionism , and distortions of price relationships; but "structural" and "regulating" principles will facilitate a functionally competitive economy with a compatible social policy, characterized by a flexible price mechanism and stable policies. This "social market economy" would provide goods and services efficiently and also eliminate poverty and the maldistribution of income and resources.     

On One Forgotten Cause of the Arab Spring: the Lack of Economic Freedom

Had the Arab Spring been widely interpreted as a revolution for ‘laissez faire’, it would certainly have stimulated more reflection on the central place of the entrepreneur in economic development, and the fundamental role of economic freedom to let this prosperity‐generating entrepreneurship flourish. The future of the Arab Spring depends on the capacity of the new democratically elected governments to implement measures to prevent crony capitalism, restore the rule of law and promote economic freedom in order to ensure general prosperity.     

Did Mises Err? Was He a Utilitarian?

A bstract .   Walter Block's critique of my paper fails to address the main argument: that Ludwig von Mises's support for laissez faire comes from a comparison of the systems recommended by the ideologies of socialism, interventionism, and liberalism. Mises compares these systems according to the criterion of their capacity to achieve the goal of satisfying material wants. This goal is either explicit or implicit in the arguments made by those who subscribe to the above ideologies. He uses value-free economic reasoning to determine whether the systems recommended by the three ideologies will achieve the goal. In this reply, I reaffirm the argument in the face of Block's critique. In addition, I address two other arguments. The first is the implicit argument in Murray Rothbard and in Block that Mises erred because he failed to take account of all the goals that policy advocates might have in recommending a policy. I argue that he did not err. The second is that Mises is a utilitarian, an argument also advanced by Leland Yeager. I argue not only that Mises was not but also that he repudiated the idea that his support for laissez faire was based on utilitarian welfare principles. The reply also answers some of Block's more specific criticisms of my paper.     

Cultural Relativism and the Savage

Abstract . Judged by his political and economic writings, the 19th‐century thinker William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) is a conservative, a Social Darwinist, and something of a libertarian, who looked down on members of less developed cultures. However, as a sociologist, he is remembered for formulating the distinction between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, and is considered an early contributor to multiculturalism theory. Is it simply the case that Sumner was inconsistent, or have his works perhaps been misunderstood?     

经济增长与环境

在政府不参与环境控制时,经济增长率最高,但污染也最严重,社会福利要比政府采取补贴情形时低.通过建立模型推导出了在放任政策下的经济增长率是最快的,但污染比较严重。     

Nature in Economic Theories: Hans Immler Traces Recognition of the Environment—and Its Neglect—in Various Classics

Abstract . Labor and capital are usually considered as the primary factors of production, the costs of which are of utmost importance. In contrast, nature (including all natural resources), as the essential third factor, is disregarded. She is generally assumed to be always available, self-regenerating, and to be exploited without long-term costs. In other words, she is more or less viewed as a constant. Hans Immler's new treatise represents an important contribution in that he emphasizes the role and function of the natural environment, and its neglect, in the formulation of theories of value and their long-term consequences on contemporary economic theories and on the person and society. This essay traces Immler's evaluation with extensive quotations—especially with regard to Physiocracy and the classical economists— of nature's role and function, or their neglect, in the formulation of theories of value through the writings of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, William Petty, John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, and others—all dealt with in Part 1 of his book—and Francois Quesnay and the Physiocrats—the topic of Part 2.     

IT IS TIME TO RECONSIDER UK GAMBLING POLICY

Today's irrational regulatory restrictions on the development of full‐scale, destination‐resort casinos are inconsistent with the UK's laissez‐faire attitude towards business in general, hinder growth in a faltering economy and infringe basic civil liberties.     

Moral Capitalism: A Biblical Perspective

We argue that laissez‐faire capitalism in its current form is unsustainable, and that if it is to survive, we need to develop a new moral capitalism. An underexplored source on the subject that may provide insight into current difficulties is the Hebrew Bible. We explicate four basic principles of the Hebrew Bible and Talmud on economic affairs, and show how these ancient ideas can be used to create a more moral economic system.     

Henry George and Europe

A bstract . The progressive democratic social philosophy of a 19th century American economist, Henrys George , has had a far-reaching effect on some European intellectual and political leaders. Not all adopted his practical proposal, the single land value tax as a substitute for other taxes. But the British Liberal party , a section of the British Labor party and Danish smallholders did. George's ideas were absorbed into the long standing European land reform tradition and he became the initiator and theoretical founder of the modern movement there, as Heinrich Erman , the German legal scholar, held. It is a mistake to say that the French Physiocrats anticipated George; their produit net was a tax on output, not highest potential use and was aimed to achieve stability , not development. Europeans see George and Georgism the same as Americans but in a different context, that of Natural rights.     

“When Should Manufacturers Want Fair Trade?”: New Insights from Asymmetric Information when Supply Chains Compete

We study a model of competing manufacturer/retailer pairs where adverse selection and moral hazard are coupled with promotional externalities at the downstream level. In contrast to earlier models mainly focusing on a bilateral monopoly setting, we show that with competing brands a ‘laissez‐faire’ approach towards vertical price control might not always promote productive efficiency. Giving manufacturers freedom to control retail prices is more likely to harm consumers when retailers impose positive promotional externalities on each other, and the converse is true otherwise. Our simple model also suggests that, with competing supply chains, consumers and manufacturers might prefer different contractual modes if promotional externalities have substantial effects on demands.     

On the Centenary of Progress and Poverty

A bstract . Henry George was more fortunate than many authors of classics. His Progress and Poverty won understanding, appreciation and recognition from the start. The book presented a theory of the business cycle based on monopoly of which theorists must take account. It also represented the peak of the development of the classical school. George shared with the school's great figures, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo , a Utopian vision of a free economy. But George went beyond them in envisioning a free society in a new moral order; he was one of the great libertarian philosophers. Moreover, as Teilhac has shown, he projected into economics a social rationalism that opened the way for a reborn political economy based on scientific method. Though his is one of the enduring creations of the human mind which spur the species on to greater cultural achievements, it is, first and foremost, an economic classic. Insofar as George pointed to monopoly and privilege as socially disastrous institutions , his teaching has been adopted by economists everywhere. His doctrine that all men share a common right to the earth now rules space exploitation—that is, the universe —and the deep oceans and it is winning grudging recognition in the one-fourth of the earth humanity inhabits.     

How to be a Value-Free Advocate of Laissez Faire

A bstract .   Ludwig von Mises is often regarded as a "champion" of laissez faire. This characterization seems to contradict Mises's clear statement that economics is value free. The aim of this paper is to resolve this apparent contradiction. We accomplish this by distinguishing, as Mises did, between the advocacy of specific laissez-faire policies and the advocacy of a laissez-faire ideology vis-à-vis the alternative ideologies of socialism and interventionism. Mises argued that the logic of a value-free economics could be used to show that socialist and interventionist policies would not achieve a goal that the socialists and interventionists implicitly or explicitly aim to achieve, that of progress in terms of material wealth for the members of society. Thus, Mises resolved the contradiction by shifting the debate from the welfare analysis of particular policies to a logical analysis of the ends of a particular ideology and the means available to achieve those ends.
In a seminal paper in neo-Austrian economics, Murray Rothbard criticized Mises. We analyze Rothbard's argument partly as a means of elucidating Mises's views and argue that Rothbard misinterpreted Mises and quoted him out of context. Rothbard failed to adequately support his claim that Mises held the beliefs that Rothbard attributed to him. Moreover, Rothbard's paper undermined the value freedom that Mises regarded as a crucial characteristic of economics.     

Taxation: The Lost History

Regular, periodic taxation is a function of modern government, a practice that arose only because the rent of land and natural resources was transformed from the traditional source of public revenue in the Middle Ages to private property, starting in the 17th century. In the earlier era, taxes (special exactions on ordinary income and daily necessities) were imposed only under unusual circumstances, usually to fight wars. The French Physiocrats and their student, Adam Smith, proposed that the best form of modern taxation would be based on the same principle as the medieval system—a fee derived entirely from surpluses, not imposed as a burden on production. This was actually what Adam Smith meant by “ability to pay.” Smith's sophisticated understanding of economic rent was, however, simplified and distorted by numerous economists throughout the 19th century, who buried the concept under layers of obfuscation. In particular, the substitution of “Paretian rent” for “Ricardian rent” committed the fallacy of composition by shifting rent from a social concept to a private, unit‐level concept, which caused social surplus to simply “disappear.” Bringing this “lost history” to light permits us to re‐evaluate how modern societies might benefit from Smith's physiocratic concept of taxation. This work not only traces debates about rent—for example, whether rent arises from risk‐taking, or whether a tax on rent raises commodity prices—but also discusses the practical benefits of taxing it today.     

A New Strategy Against Hostile Takeovers: A Model of Defense in Participations

This article examines the efficacy of a ‘defense in participations’ policy consisting of competitors acquiring cross‐equity participations within the same industry to prevent hostile takeovers. This defense in participations strategy provides disincentive for raiders as partial ownerships increase market power of competitors and then reinforce the ‘outsider effect’. Also, we find conditions for a general result, which state that takeovers are less profitable in an industry with participations rather than in an industry without any capital links. We provide information to regulators about the positive social impact of cross participations in the context of mergers and expose an economic dilemma between a ‘laissez‐faire’ and an interventionist approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Henry George's Labor Theory of Value: He Saw the Entrepreneurs and Workers as Employers of Capital and Land, and Not the Reverse

A bstract . Henry George , the 19th century American economist and social philosopher , saw the problem of protecting the working peoples' wages and Jobs one of distributive justice. He attacked as fallacious the idea that equality of opportunity to work was a "privilege" accorded to labor. The protectionist system , he held, was based on the antidemocratic notion that "the many are called to serve and the few to rule." The paternalism of protection, whether in the domestic or the world economy , is "the pretense of tyranny," he argued. He holds that labor, including workers and entrepreneurs, and not landholders, or owners of capital, is the source of all economic value. Labor, he reasoned, "employs capital," and not the reverse. George's theory of value was an improvement on Adam Smith's , putting into it a greater emphasis on the importance of land in the analysis of the distribution of wealth. But it was a production cost theory, with all its problems and advantages.     

Henry George and Europe

A bstract . In the eyes of European scholars, publicists and politicians who studied Henry George's work, he, as a social philosopher , had adopted the position of the natural law philosophers of the 18th century. The latter inspired the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, as well as the poiitical philosophy of Jeffersonian democracy , the ethos of the 18th and 19th century pioneer settlers. George rejected Social Darwinism. He saw natural law as the only true and reliable basis for a just social order. Like Karl Marx he mastered Ricardian economics ; unlike Marx, George made two factors the basis of his system, labor and land. George saw that each person had a natural right —and a natural imperative for survival —to apply his or her productive capacity to the earth –as living space and as storehouse of nutrients and raw materials. The person-land relationship , he discovered, lay at the basis of human culture. And so the land's rent , now monopolized by the few, had to be appropriated to meet the needs of society, most efficiently and justly by a land value tax.     

Natural Rights,Human Rights,and Libertarianism

The present article is devoted to developing a libertarian understanding of whether natural rights may or may not underpin human rights and, if so, how. Libertarianism is first defined in terms of the nonaggression principle (NAP), in answer to the question “What is the proper use of force?” This provides a basis for the libertarian positions on property rights, taxation, and many other issues, including human rights. Various philosophical rationales for the NAP are explored, including utilitarianism, religion, and natural rights. The basis of human rights is then examined. Every ethical tradition supports the nonaggression principle, which makes it an ideal candidate for the fundamental basis of human rights. Unfortunately, other traditions expand upon human rights by adding “positive” rights that ultimately violate the NAP. The conclusion takes up the application of libertarian principles to three issues, which could be viewed as human rights questions: discrimination, abortion, and the “trolley problem.” The last one involves taking one life to save many others.     

The Carbon Neutral Public Sector

Abstract

This paper argues for research into the effectiveness of government strategies for a ‘carbon neutral public sector’. We review initiatives in three OECD countries: New Zealand, Australia and the UK. In all jurisdictions, government agencies have consistently stressed ‘leading by example’ as a rationale for adoption. ‘Direct mandate’ by the Prime Minister (NZ); ‘organic development’ from wider central government sustainability initiatives (UK); and a more ‘laissez faire’ approach by Australian Federal and State Governments, were identified as the general pathways leading to implementation. Our assessment indicates: a lack of understanding of the implementation process for carbon neutrality; a need to identify and critically examine the ‘offset threshold’ at which mitigation efforts cease and offsetting is adopted; an absence of any evaluation of the ‘leading by example’ rationale; a lack of inter-country comparisons; a gap in understanding the relationship with economic and social aspects of sustainability; and a need to evaluate the utility of core government departments as the focus of carbon accounting. We urge colleagues to consider research in this area with a view to contributing to the interdisciplinary solutions which we believe are required.     

The Libertarian Character of the Islamic Economy

This article reviews the shari'a approach to markets and examines its treatment by certain twentieth‐century Islamic economists such as Nejatullah Siddiqui, Nawab Haider Naqvi, Umer Chapra and M.A. Mannan. It characterises the arguments of these economists as largely statist, redistributive and socialist, possibly reflecting post‐colonial intellectual experiences. Yet shari'a endorses negative freedom by proscribing price controls and guaranteeing consumer protection from coercion. Islamic law, this article argues, as evinced in both revealed knowledge and human exegesis, has endorsed a market‐friendly, libertarian and limited‐government philosophy.     

基于AHP的农产品物流金融风险评价

农产品加工企业融资难是现代农村经济发展中面临的一大障碍。农产品物流金融业务的开展,有利于降低农业经济风险,改变农村融资难的处境。本文在对农产品物流金融的基础理论进行研究的基础上,针对农产品物流金融运作中农产品特殊属性,构建了典型农产品物流金融风险评价指标体系,并运用层次分析法(AHP)建立风险评价模型,定量分析了农产品物流金融的风险因素,提出了农产品物流金融运作中风险防范策略。