American critics of welfare statism are often surprised to learn that countries like West Germany, with a much more comprehensive welfare state and a statistically larger public sector, have fewer government employees per capita than the United States does.

When laissez-faire creates instability, the move to a freer market can be something less than pure gain.

Technological advance often thrives in sheltered and subsidized markets, which defy free trade.

As a scholarly discipline, economics has always suffered from physics envy.

In a world where technology and capital are highly transferable, there is a real risk that comparative advantage comes to be defined as whose labor force will work for the lowest wage.

It is more than a little ironic that "capital accumulation" once a rather tendentious Marxian view of a supposed capitalist obsession, should have become - of all things - Wall Street's own slogan.

Technological change is beneficial only when other jobs replace the ones lost.