Bob Murphy

Author Archive

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem: The Statement versus Its Proof

Ah! I love this stuff. In a bout of magnanimity I went back and re-read the comments in this Potpourri post, where Keshav and I couldn’t understand why Tel kept asking certain questions about Arrow’s Theorem. (Here’s my follow up which you should also read for more context.) And now I think I get what […]

What Does the Dictator Condition Mean in Arrow’s Theorem?

In the most recent Potpourri post a raging controversy began, which has the ability to rival the Great Debt Debate. The specific motivation was my recent appearance on the Tom Woods Show when I was promoting my Liberty Classroom course on the History of Economic Thought II, and I made a quick mention of Arrow’s […]

Jonah Goldberg on EconTalk on God

Jonah Goldberg is featured in the latest EconTalk, discussing his new book Suicide of the West. It was a very pleasant interview (as these episodes usually are), but there was one thing I found very odd. Jonah and Russ made several references to God throughout the discussion. (Russ is an observant Jew; I guess I […]

Potpourri

Some of these may be duplicates; I have had a hard time keeping up with stuff lately… ==> My latest IER post tackles Krugman’s misleadings claims on renewables. Some pretty graphs! ==> A funny comic on Rothbard, Rand, and Marx. ==> I don’t know how long these have been available, but check out audio clips […]

Maybe Piketty Will Fix His Basic Facts in the Third Edition

For the context here, Piketty’s bestseller totally botched the history of the US minimum wage in the post-1980 era, in a way that conveniently praised Democrats and excoriated Republicans. (Phil Magness and I documented it in our paper, but Veronique de Rugy–I think?–was the first person who flagged this one.) Anyway, someone sent me screenshots […]

My Debate With George Selgin on Fractional Reserve Banking

A good time had by all. Note that comedian Dave Smith warmed the crowd up before we began, and he had a joke in there about a short Mexican guy staring him down. (I allude to the joke twice during the debate; I’m just explaining where that is coming from.)

Christianity and Hell

I have written several posts here on the concept of hell (although the only one I can find right now is this one). I was thinking about it again after watching this trailer of the movie “Come Sunday”: I think the only way to really make sense of hell is that the sinner in a […]

Reactions to Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules”

Scott Alexander had a mixed reaction to Jordan Peterson’s book. It starts out very complimentary, but then Alexander ends up wondering whether CS Lewis would view Peterson as an ally or a mortal enemy. But that’s not really the thing I want to focus on. My own reaction to Alexander’s review was lament. Alexander actually […]