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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  • Jeffrey Tucker

The Sole of a Runner Jan 22, 2014

The best thing about the five-finger Vibram shoe – the craze has certainly reach the tipping point – is that it lets the runner navigate terrain that had previously been in accessible. With heel-first running, I had always been restricted to sidewalks and streets. Now that I run as the body’s frame and leg muscles intended, I can utterly dominate and conquer nature itself, smashing under foot pine straw, dirt, zoysia grass, centipede grass, bermuda grass, small rocks, and every other rough-hewn path of earth you can find in suburbia other than marshy land strewn with ant hills or dog...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote5 4

McDonald’s as the Paradigm of Progress Jan 22, 2014

The nice folks at the local McDonald's know me well, but even they were puzzled when I snapped a dozen images of their newly restored interior, which is absolutely beautiful. Like most fast-food places, the management is used to customers but still a bit surprised by dedicated fans like me. I feel vindicated by recent data on this company's hiring in the midst of terrible economic times. The national labor-participation rate has been falling for a decade and is now as low as it was during the 1982 recession. If people were leaving the workplace with wads of cash and...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote6 0

The Abolition of the Playground Jan 22, 2014

The Bobcat tractor was working its way through a pile of mulch as big as an office building, dragging it from the alley to the playground of a private daycare facility. I asked the crew foreman about the sheer vastness of this mulch pile. “It’s about the state regulations. There has to be 8 inches of this stuff underneath every play structure.” “The State regulates even things like this?” I asked. “The regulations on playgrounds are 15 miles long,” he said. “They mandate every fastener and bolt, the distance and height of every structure, and, especially, the drainage. Just getting...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote2 0

The New Libertarianism Jan 22, 2014

I spent a fascinating weekend hanging out with a few hundred of the smartest, most forward-thinking college students I’ve met in years. It was a real inspiration to see how these young people are preparing to navigate an economic and social environment that is so radically different from anything their parents knew. Rather than defeatism and despair, I detected a strong dedication to creativity, entrepreneurship, and living a great life despite a system that seems dedicated to bringing them down. They were gathered for the New York regional conference of Students for Liberty, an organization that is absolutely on fire...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote4 1

Who Should Control the World? Jan 22, 2014

In the days following the gift-giving holidays, many millions of people stand in judgement over the quality of the gifts they gave and the gifts they receive. Did they arrive on time? Did the quality hold up? Did the reality match the advertising hype? The Internet ads an extra wrinkle. Anyone dissatisfied can post blistering attacks on any merchant and the product in questions. Anyone can vote up or vote down. The down votes are what make the news. The Wall Street Journal tells the story of Scott Mitchell of Connecticut, who purchased from Best Buy and Playstation 3 for...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote2 0

The Economics of the Baby Shortage Jan 22, 2014

Richard Posner and Elisabeth Landes wrote this excellent paper in 1978, but I’m only now seeing it. It speaks of the terrible inefficiencies — pervasive shortages and surpluses — that come with state adoption agencies and their price controlled system of allocating the right to raise children. They address all the usual objections to a market for children and generally provide enough evidence to lower the temperature of the debate and introduce some rational thinking here. In passing, they point out that a real market for child-rearing rights would probably end the practice of abortion or perhaps seriously curtail it. Wow....

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote26 13

The Freedom of Rose Wilder Lane Jan 22, 2014

People schooled in the libertarian idea are prepared for the thesis that freedom is productive and protective of human rights, whereas despotism is neither. Many years ago, I first glanced through Rose Wilder Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom and assumed that it was an eloquent statement of known truths, so surely there was nothing much to learn here. Maybe it was right for beginners. In my second reading, some ten years later, I was struck by the depth and sweep of her argument and how it goes far beyond conventions. The problem, as she sees it, is not just the...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote3 0

The Why of Cheap Wine and Expensive Health Care Jan 22, 2014

I was slogging through an interminable New York Times article on health care. Plenty of facts -- how scrupulous are these journalists! -- but the article displayed absolutely no comprehension of the basics of cause and effect. I was left wondering about the whole point. The article details how the health care system rewards specialists to an extraordinary extent, how if you want a minor dermatological operation, you end up paying a half a dozen different layers of service providers. You end up coughing up thousands for a very simple operation, and have no choice and are offered no explanation....

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote7 1

Don’t Tread on My E-Cig Jan 20, 2014

One of many marvelous products to come into its own in the last year is the e-cigarette. It looks like a cig. It pumps nicotine into your body like a cig. But you don’t light it and it doesn’t fill your lungs with cancerous crud. It is a water vapor, nearly entirely odorless; and, so far as anyone can tell, it is entirely harmless. It is exactly what the doctor ordered and millions have responded. It is helping people give up the cancer sticks and coffin nails and replacing them with vapors. We are talking about a gigantic improvement over...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote8 0

The Deeper Meaning of “The Nutcracker” Jan 20, 2014

Many people this holiday season will experience the joy of attending a local performance of “The Nutcracker” ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It’s the most implausible American tradition imaginable, an import from fin-de-siècle Russia straight to your hometown. It’s living proof of the capacity of music and the art of dance to leap the bounds of time and space and delight us forever. Perhaps some viewer’s own children will perform in it, and that’s part of the appeal. But there’s more. Some reports suggest that this one ballet accounts for 40 percent of the annual revenue for professional companies. It’s...

By Jeffrey Tucker Vote3 0

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