by Dan Mitchell | Jul 21, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe
In its early days, the European Union increased economic liberty since it largely existed as a free-trade pact for member nations. Unfortunately, it has subsequently shifted to a more statist approach, with countries like France and Germany pushing for ever-increasing...
by Dan Mitchell | May 20, 2020 | Bailouts, Blogs, Europe
I wrote earlier this month about coronavirus becoming an excuse for more bad public policy. American politicians certainly have been pushing all sorts of proposals for bigger government, showing that they have embraced the notion that you don’t want to let a “crisis...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 13, 2020 | Blogs, Europe
Libertarians and other supporters of limited government historically have mixed feelings about the European Union (and its various governmental manifestations). On the plus side, there are no trade barriers between nations that belong to the EU, and membership also...
by Dan Mitchell | May 3, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market, Socialism
In a column for the New York Times, Jochen Bittner writes about how a rising star of Germany’s Social Democrat Party wants the type of socialism that made the former East Germany an economic failure. Socialism, the idea that workers’ needs are best met by the...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 14, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Socialism
What’s socialism? Is it the centrally planned economies of Cuba and North Korea? Or the kleptocracies of Zimbabwe and Venezuela? How about the interventionist welfare states of Greece, Italy, and France? Or the redistribution-oriented Nordic nations? Since socialism...
