Economics: The Art and Science of Not Killing People With Your Good Intentions

Here’s a very interesting post (with a link to accompanying PowerPoint slides) by Justin Ross at The Perfect Substitute on a lecture he is giving. The lecture is provocatively titled “Why We Need Economics to Make Policy: An Introduction on How Not to Kill People.” The title is appropriate: being cavalier about the economic way of thinking sometimes means that people die. Here’s my new favorite quote from Ludwig von Mises: “A citizen who casts his ballot without having to the best of his abilities studied as much economics as he can fails in his civic duties.”