Beautiful Anarchy

The Economics of Life Itself : Beautiful Anarchy is the writing platform of Jeffrey Tucker, in which he covers economics, art, popular culture, and politics from a pro-liberty, anti-state point of view.
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A Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin Chaos Oct 18, 2018

I can’t remember a nuttier weekend in the history of Bitcoin than this one. That’s because the action gets more exciting by the day, with deeper plots, more options, growing complexities, and financial and personal drama all around. You know why? Because this technology matters enormously for the future of the world. It’s Day One in the birth of a new way of doing business. It’s extremely hard to write about this for the uninitiated without seeming to speak Klingon, but here is my attempt. My own Twitter and instant messaging blew up with questions, assertions, declarations, and anathemas. I...

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Money, It Turns Out, Is a Practical Art Oct 18, 2018

If you read on the topic of money’s history from any mainstream textbook, you will already know the drill. In the past, money took many forms. It was shells, pelts, salt, and various metals. Finally we got paper money, credit institutions, then central banks. At this point, we are told, history was complete. The final and best form had arrived. The state would be in charge of money forever. All that was left was to have it managed in a way that better served our needs. People argued about systems of government management. Maybe a rule of some sort, based...

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This Trade Treaty Got Better when the US Bailed Oct 18, 2018

People were stunned when the Trump administration unilaterally bailed on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty in January 2017. It seemed like a deadly blow to this treaty that would have lowered tariffs among 12 nations. What is downright humiliating for Americans is that the treaty became better only after the US withdrew from it.  What did this move portend for the cause of free trade? Some despaired that it would signal a new trend toward protectionism, not only for the US but the world. There is a certain nationalist myopia in this judgment. Americans are inclined to believe that...

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Your New Mailman Works for Amazon Oct 18, 2018

There he was dropping off packages in the mail room. I picked up mine and walked away. Then I did a double take. The patch on his shoulder was not USPS, FedEx, or UPS. It was the familiar lower case “a” of Amazon. “Wait, do you actually work for Amazon?” “Yes, sir.” “The company that sells things online now has its own warehouse-to-doorstep delivery service?” “Yes, it’s been around for a year, but expanding by the day. I love my job. It’s a great company.” I am pretty sure I knew this, but it was only a news story until...

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Why We Love Farmers Markets Oct 18, 2018

Almost every small and medium-sized town has what are called farmers markets. We love them. Some are seasonal. Some open only on weekends. People shop under tents and pay vendors cash. It’s all very charming, a nice alternative to superstores. I just returned from one. I came home with a 4-pound Red Snapper, oversized Brussels Sprouts, beautiful red potatoes, fresh cheese made in the Mexican style, and tubs of spices – all for less than half what I would pay at a regular grocery store. Plus I enjoyed looking at foods and ingredients from all over the world. So delightful,...

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Beethoven’s Soundtrack to the Birth of Modernity Oct 18, 2018

As a kid, people were always trying to get me to listen to the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven. The adults decided they were good. I wasn’t buying it. To my kid ears, there was just too much happening in them. I had no context to understand them. They seemed long and pompous and had no real way to get where they were coming from or why they existed. Not for me. Not yet. I just listened again to the entire cycle, one through nine. It takes about six and a half hours. I felt transported, each symphony different from...

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Goodbye Net Neutrality; Hello Competition Oct 18, 2018

At long last, with the end of “net neutrality,” competition could soon come to the industry that delivers Internet services to you. You might be able to pick among a range of packages, some minimalist and some maximalist, depending on how you use the service. Or you could choose a package that charges based only on what you consume, rather than sharing fees with everyone else. Internet socialism is dead; long live market forces. With market-based pricing finally permitted, we could see new entrants to the industry because it might make economic sense for the first time to innovate. The...

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Dropping Traffic Rules and Signs Would Make Us Safer Oct 18, 2018

This morning, I was sitting at a stop light and heard a terrifying screeching. A black sedan headed my direction from the oncoming lane was careening across six lanes of traffic, with squealing brakes and tires, through the intersection, flying forward some 75 or so yards and finally landing against a pole with a mighty impact. Terror shot through everyone in the vicinity. Green means go. The problem was that there were cars in the way. What happened? The woman behind the wheel had been driving 45 mph and saw a green light ahead of her. Green means go. The problem was...

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Are You a Genius or a Fraud? Oct 18, 2018

One time, when I was a small child, I saw Hank Aaron go to bat. He had already hit his 500th home run. I was looking forward to seeing this genius do his thing. I was devastated when he struck out. Some genius, I recall thinking. As an eight-year-old, my first thought was that I could have done exactly what he did. Of course, Hank knew something that I, at the time, did not. Genius is about averages, not every time at bat. If every time you strike out, you imagine that you might be a fraud, you will make...

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Why Doesn’t James Scott Want to Talk about Property? Oct 18, 2018

One of the most exciting books of 2017 is James Scott’s Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (Yale 2017). It deals with all the salient questions (that I care about in any case). In prehistoric times, how did human beings discover how to feed themselves? How did we decide to become settled in one spot rather than move around as hunters and gatherers? And the biggest question: where did the state come from and why? Scott is properly seen as a critic of the modern state, if not a full-blown anti-statist radical. The core of Scott’s...

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Why Does Trump Fear Merging Media Dinosaurs? Oct 18, 2018

In a strange blast from the past, the Trump administration has rejected an uncontroversial vertical merger proposed by AT&T and Time Warner. Oh sure, it’s petty. It’s arbitrary and capricious. It’s economically unjustified. The principal players are right to object. Still, it’s nothing new. Antitrust has always been this way, from Standard Oil to Microsoft. It’s always been about power, not economics. Vertical mergers haven’t been controversial in a long time. But this one is different, so far as the Trump administration is concerned. It’s a reminder of the old days when Washington was in freak-out mode about Hollywood’s “studio...

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The Frozen Sisters Grapple with Tradition Anxiety Oct 18, 2018

It’s beyond me why the Disney short showing before the new movie Coco (which itself is fantastic) is getting such terrible reviews. It might have something to do with an aspect of Internet culture. Tradition anxiety is prompted by the depth of the history associated with the winter holiday. You can make a bigger splash on social media by brutally criticizing something than by praising it. Then the tipping point arrives and everyone somehow has to agree something is terrible even when it is not (the paradigmatic case of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” comes to mind). In any case, I found...

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History Is Malleable in the Land of the Dead Oct 18, 2018

We tend to think of the past as settled. There is nothing we can do to change it. But this is not entirely true. How we think about the past – the good guys and bad guys, the justice and injustice, the causes and effects – has a profound effect on our perceptions of the present. Our understanding comes to be revised based on new information as it comes to light. In this sense, the past is not settled. It is a living reality. Big thoughts, right? They come to me courtesy of an animated film now rocking the theaters. I’ve...

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Fed Official Decries Bitcoin as “Not Backed” Oct 18, 2018

Randal K. Quarles, a Trump administration appointee to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and Vice Chair for bank supervision, has given a lengthy speech (“Thoughts on Prudent Innovation in the Payment System”) that directly targets Bitcoin as a danger to the monetary and financial system. To reiterate, an official speaking for the nation's central bank that manages the global reserve currency – the institution that has long bragged about its power to bail out the entire world with the magic powers of the alchemist – has put down Bitcoin for being untrustworthy, unbacked, and unsound. Discrediting Crypto The timing...

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The Obamacare Mandate Is a Tax, So the Senate Bill Is Correct Oct 18, 2018

The Washington Post is outraged. The New York Times even more so. Commentators are going nuts. “Using a tax bill to abolish the individual mandate amounts to a backdoor way of sabotaging Obamacare,” writes John Cassidy. “Republicans, and Donald Trump, have counted on that (as well as your limited outrage bandwidth) in slipping an Affordable Care Act mandate repeal inside their insidious tax bill,” writes Bridget Read. Obamacare’s much-despised individual mandate is, in fact, a tax. It is properly dealt with in a tax bill. All this howling is due to how the GOP-controlled Senate used a tax bill to...

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The Genius of the “Dilly Dilly” Commercial Oct 18, 2018

Sometimes a commercial appears that both shatters a paradigm and creates a popular meme that truly sticks. The genius is undeniable but extremely hard to manufacture from a formula. It just works. Think of “I’d like to teach the world to sing,” “Where’s the beef?”, “Mikey likes it!”, and “Do you have any Grey Poupon?” All these were huge cultural moments that managed to achieve what advertising is supposed to achieve: brand recognition, pride in consumption, affirmation of cultural identity. We had another one come to us in 2017. It’s Bud Light’s Dilly Dilly commercial that first ran during an...

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In Defense of Bitcoin Hoarding Oct 18, 2018

In Internet slang, they are called the HODLers, the people who are clinging to their Bitcoin and refusing to spend it. Instead, they just refresh their wallet apps, feeling richer by day while deferring consumption. Many of these burgeoning millionaires live like paupers. I’ve met many of them: all over the U.S., in Israel, in Brazil. They believe that every dollar they spend today is two dollars they won’t make in a few months. Probably they are right. There is nothing selfish, strange, or weird about holding an asset that is rising in value. Bitcoin is undergoing a historic deflation,...

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What Really Matters about Bitcoin Oct 18, 2018

After Bitcoin hit $10,000, it, at last, seemed to dawn on the mainstream financial press that this thing matters. There has been a panic rush to catch up on the meaning of it all. Some have doubled down on the claim that the whole thing is a hoax. Others dismiss it as a bubble (indeed, all financial models would suggest that a correction is needed). Some bigshots have called for it to be banned as if it is even possible to ban a mathematical protocol. So much confusion out there! Having followed this technology from 2010, here are the ten...

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Be Desperately Grateful for Life Itself Oct 18, 2018

This year has been one of the greatest of my life, full of amazing changes that point to a bright future for all the things I care about. This year has also made me most grateful for life itself. Two dear friends have recently announced potentially life-threatening diseases, and I suffer to think of their turmoil and pain, and pray for their recovery. Both have been enormously valuable people in my life, and their suffering is my suffering. Also this year, a man who had a profound influence on me – so quiet, so cautious, so tender – passed away,...

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How to Live Like a Bitcoin Millionaire Oct 18, 2018

The opportunity is to live every dream you have ever had. Now. The problem is that for every dream you realize, you have to relinquish some of your property. And every bit of that property is hard to come by, extraordinarily lucrative, and the single most in-demand thing on the planet earth. Among the crypto rich, it’s hip to be poor. You must be tight. Stingy. No signs of wealth.  So, yes, you could be living it up. Instead, you have become addicted to seeing your net worth rise and rise...oh, and rise further, and further, and rise again. And...

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