A Classical-Liberal Response to the Crisis of Bioethics
Lauren K. Hall

As currently practiced, bioethics is largely irrelevant to those who are affected by new biomedical technology. The bioethics community could recover from this crisis by applying classical-liberal precepts about human nature and absolute power to crucial issues such as patient autonomy, physician responsibility, and human dignity.

Central Banks as Sources of Financial Instability
George Selgin

The present financial crisis shows how central banks can fuel the financial booms that make severe busts possible. Unfortunately, theoretical discussions of central banking badly neglect its role in fostering financial instability, in part because they ignore its history and political origins.

Lost Trust: The Real Cause of the Financial Meltdown
Bruce Yandle

Accounting standards, credit ratings, and credit-default swaps were created to help facilitate financial transactions by fostering trust. In the run-up to the credit-market freeze of 2008 those assurance mechanisms collapsed under the weight of political and regulatory pressures to aggressively expand homeownership and other policies.

Some Costs of the Great War: Nationalizing Private Life
T. Hunt Tooley

The casualties of World War I did not end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Part of the toll was the war’s acceleration of the nationalization of private life, a trend that continues to the present day.