In een post op de liberarische blog Econlog vraag Bryan Caplan zich af waarom er geen alliantie is tussen progressieven en libertariërs. Ze hebben immers op een aantal vlakken - immigatie, oorlog (tegen terreur of drugs) - gelijkaadige ideeën. Toch zit zo'n alliantie er helemaal niet in. Volgens Caplan is het antwoord op die vraag redelijk simpel: links is niet zozeer voor het bestrijden van armoede of inkomensongelijkheid of voor het verdedigen van de rechten van minderheden. Links is in de eerste plaats contra de vrije markt.

I have to post this because this is about everything this blog is about: classical liberalism is the really progressive movement. Not modern liberalism mind you but classical liberalism, or what some would call these days "libertarianism".  But let's turn the mike over to Dave Rubin, a former member of the leftwing network The Young Turks, but who has now become a classical liberal:

We all know it: to lose weight we all need to eat less and/or excercise more. Even Stephen Hawkings said so : "We eat too much and move too little". Givin the fact that Hawkings cannot move at all, while he seems to be almost anorexic, this comment is more than just a little ironic. Because the thing is this: while you indeed need to be in a caloric deficit to become smaller the idea that you can ONLY do this by moving more and eating less is overly simplistic and woefully incomplete.

Just a short article to get the site running again. Economic textbooks generally are rife with the concept of "market failures". The most important are externalities (positive and negative), public goods and monopolies.