One day a socialist is supposed to have come into the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s office at the height of his wealth in the 1890s and demanded that the rich should distribute their wealth to the poor of the earth. Carnegie, so the story goes, asked his assistant to estimate his current wealth and then divide it by the number of people in this world. The assistant returned shortly thereafter with the figures and Carnegie told him: “Give this gentleman sixteen cents. That’s his share of the … [Read more...]
The Untold Story of the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Plant Disaster (Chernobyl)
In their 1992 book, Ecocide in the USSR, Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly Jr. stated that “no other industrial civilisation so systematically and so long poisoned its land, air, and people.” A well-known example of the parlous and perilous state of environmental protection in the USSR is the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986, in reactor four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. What most people probably don’t know is that this nuclear power plant proudly bore the … [Read more...]
Is capitalism to blame for hunger and poverty?
Before capitalism, most of the global population were living in extreme poverty. From 90 percent in 1820, the rate has now fallen to 10 percent. Most remarkably, since the end of communism in China and other countries in recent decades, poverty has declined faster than in any previous period in human history. Many people who believe that capitalism is to blame for hunger and poverty have an entirely unrealistic notion of life in pre-capitalist societies. Johan Norberg, the author of the … [Read more...]
Corona Crisis – Have hopes for the end of capitalism been dashed?
Since the dawn of anti-capitalism, the free-market system’s opponents have been waiting for the great crisis that will bring about its final collapse. Karl Marx thought he had discovered various economic “laws,” such as the “tendential fall in the rate of profit” and the “relative impoverishment of the proletariat.” For anti-capitalists, the prospect of crisis has always been, above all, a sign of hope – that capitalism would finally (and forever) collapse. But such hopes have been dashed again … [Read more...]
Environmental regulations can sometimes do more harm than good
Contrary to popular perceptions, all around the world, environmental conditions have improved dramatically in recent decades. There is less air pollution and more widespread access to clean water than ever before. Anyone who wants to learn more about this astounding progress should read Stephen Pinker’s Enlightenment Now and Hans Rosling’s Factfulness. These environmental performance gains are largely due to the global spread of economic freedom, because – as numerous studies show – … [Read more...]
