Bastiat’s Broken-Window Error

by Dan Sullivan

Failure to appreciate the economic Law of Rent, or to recognize that interferences with the natural laws of distribution spawn interferences with production, leads one to conclusions that seem to make perfect sense, but which don’t reconcile with reality An example of this is in Bastiat’s essay, “What is Seen and Not Seen,” often referred to as “The Broken- Window Fallacy.” Continue reading

Good Ideas (Eventually) Get Noticed

by Lindy Davies

In recent months we have seen a number of positive references to rent-as-revenue in the news. These recommendations haven’t made “page one,” of course; the first-string media in this day and age is all caught up in the modern madness of “the news cycle” — beating all the other outlets to the same item (often enough, the latest antics of Sheen or Lohan). Not so far under the surface, though, unmistakable currents of common sense are rising. Continue reading