Adam Smith's market never stood alone

It is very simple. Adam Smith understood it and commented on it. If you allow businesses to have control of the market they will take benefits they don’t deserve at the expense of society. And many business will seek every opportunity to collude with other businesses to stop the free market from reducing their profits and instead instituting anti-competitive practices. Unless you stop this you don’t get the benefits of free market capitalism.

|Peter Boettke| I had the great privilege of introducing Elinor Ostrom tonight.  She is a very special person and we were all very fortunate to have her join us tonight.  Here are my introductory remarks:

Via Steve Benen, a fascinating point from Jay Bookman—Republican politicians are much more conservative than the self-identified Republican electorate:

By Situm:A few months ago an interesting debate took place between Larry Smith, a retired biotech analyst who writes for Seeking Alpha as well as his own website, SmithonStocks.com and Adam Feuerstein who writes for the Street.Com regarding Northwest Biotherapeutics (NWBO). Mr. Feuerstein basically called out the data from NWBO's phase i/ii trials and Mr. Smith rebutted the critique.

|Peter Boettke| In one of my favorite passages from The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith explains the ability of markets to function and improve the lives of the participants through the mutual gains from trade and the benefits of innovation even in unfavorable circumstances.  To quote Smith:

Argumentative Indians it is. The Amartya Sen-Bhagwati face-off deepened with Gujarat, Modi right at the centre of it. While Sen offered to return his Bharat Ratna, Bhagwati reiterated his support for Gujarat growth model.

from Lars Syll Interviewed by Olaf Storbeck and Dorit Hess, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen makes some interesting remarks on the state of modern economics: Question: Professor Sen, do you have the impression that economists and economic policy makers are learning the right lessons from the most severe economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression? [...]

Steven HorwitzSome of you may have seen a variety of blog posts in the last week or two discussing the results of a Pew survey in which people were asked whether they viewed a variety of political terms positively or negatively.  Tim Cavanaugh at Reason has most of the data and a libertarian perspective on it.  The results are not too bad for libertarian-minded folks.