The global pandemic, and the proper response to it, force us to critically examine the line between the need to respect individual rights and the desire to limit the virus’s spread.

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The Tradition of Spontaneous Order by Norman Barry
Norman Barry
The Tradition of Spontaneous Order

“Men will have to design those institutions that will automatically encourage them to maximize their long-​run interests.”

Interest Rightly Understood
Grant Babcock
G. A. Cohen and Socialist Calculation

Cohen’s moral defense of socialism seriously underestimates the information problems plaguing an economy without prices.

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Jim Powell
Freedom From Plunder: Frédéric Bastiat
The French satirist, agitator, writer, and politician Frédéric Bastiat was France’s foremost champion of liberty in the 19th century.
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Johan Norberg
How Laissez-​Faire Made Sweden Rich
Sweden often gets held up as an example of how socialism can work better than markets. But, as Norberg shows, Sweden’s history in fact points to the opposite conclusion.
The Man of System by Adam Smith
Adam Smith
The Man of System

Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments included this passage about spontaneous order vs planned economy.

That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
Frédéric Bastiat
That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen

Bastiat shows how economic thinking goes wrong by focusing on immediate and obvious effects and ignoring effects that are harder to notice or quantify.