prior probability

By some accounts (see, for example, this one), the modern-day origins of Saint Valentine’s Day go back to the 14th Century, and according to this report in The Scotsman, this amorous occasion was celebrated in Scotland as far back as medieval times. As it happens, during the pandemic I set out to investigate whether the great Scottish moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith, the author of two of the most influential works in the English language and a lifelong bachelor, had ever fallen in love. My full report on this matter, which is titled Adam Smith in Love, is available here. (For a summary of my researches, see my blog post “Adam Smith’s lost loves“.)

Down below, on sidewalks, in fallen leaves, and across the forest floor, a covert invasion is taking place. Ant colonies, revered and studied for their complex collective behaviors, are being infiltrated by tiny organisms called myrmecophiles. Using incredibly sophisticated tactics, various species of butterflies, beetles, crickets, spiders, fungi, and bacteria insert themselves into ant colonies and decode the colonies’ communication system. Once able to ‘speak the language’, these outsiders can masquerade as ants. Suddenly colony members can no longer distinguish friend from foe.

Hölldobler & Kwapich 2022

Thus far, I have featured several new books authored or edited by faculty at my home institution, the University of Central Florida (UCF). Today, however, I want to showcase my favorite work: The Guests of Ants: How Myrmecophiles Interact with Their Hosts (Belknap Press, 2022), which was co-authored by my colleague and new friend Christina L. Kwapich, a biologist at UCF who specializes in the behavior and ecology of ant societies, and Bert Hölldobler, a behavioral biologist at Arizona State who specializes in myrmecology. The excerpt quoted above is from the dust jacket of their beautiful book.

This weekend, I showcased two new books authored or edited by faculty at my home institution: Ty Matejowsky’s Smothered and Covered: Waffle House and the Southern Imaginary (University of Alabama Press, 2022; see here) and David Head and Timothy Hemmis’s A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation (Pegasus Books, 2023; here). Today, I want to single out for honorable mention Peter L. Larson’s historical case study of two rural parishes in County Durham in northeastern England, which is titled Rethinking the Great Transition: Community and Economic Growth in County Durham, 1349-1660. Professor Larson, a historian at my home institution, the University of Central Florida, is now the Associate Dean of UCF’s College of Arts and Humanities.

I hate to be that guy, but why do celebrities who fly on private jets like to lecture us little people about climate change? Exhibit A: Taylor Swift, who has called climate change one of the most “horrific situations that we find ourselves facing right now.” But at the same time, Ms Swift’s “carbon footprint” puts even Al Gore’s to shame! According to the Associated Press, for example, “Traveling 19,400 miles [i.e. from Tokyo to Las Vegaas] on a Dassault Falcon 900LX, one of Swift’s jets, could release more than 200,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions …” Call me cynical, but no wonder why she wants to keep the movements of her private jets a secret!

Mark my words, very few people will remember this — not even the ads! — two years from now. I’m with these guys: https://www.npr.org/2018/02/10/584757764/there-is-a-competition-to-avoid-learning-who-won-the-super-bowl-for-some-reason

Alternate title: Dierdre McCloskey’s list of 108 fictional market failures

Are “market failures” real? Or are they make-believe entities (like the aether in physics) invented by economists to justify their preferred public policies and all manner of nefarious and ultimately counter-productive regulations?

As it happens, I recently discovered this long and rambling but devastating takedown of economics authored by the legendary Dierdre N. McCloskey (ungated version here). Among other things, Professor McCloskey not only rattles off a comprehensive and chronological list of 108 alleged market failures that economists have identified or invented in order to justify public regulation of economic activity, beginning with Thomas Malthus’s now-debunked population theory and concluding with Thomas Piketty’s jury-rigged world inequality database; she also shows how these putative or fictional market failures are essentially the equivalent of intellectual moral panics among the economists who peddle them.

For my part, while I agree with the spirit, if not the letter, of McCloskey’s scathing critique of contemporary economics, I have but one quibble with her list of imaginary market failures: “the failure to define property rights …” (See Item #53 on page 12 of the ungated version.) Properly speaking, from my law professor perspective, the failure to define property rights is what I like to call a “legal failure” — a shortcoming of the legal system that makes it much harder for people to truck, barter, and trade. I first presented my theory of legal failure in my contribution to the 2014 book Economics of the Undead (see here), and more recently, I applied my theory to outer space (here).

What a glorious time to be alive! Another book that caught my attention during the “Faculty Authors’ Celebration” at my home institution last week was A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation, which was co-edited by historians David Head and Timothy Hemmis. (Professor Head teaches history at my home institution, the University of Central Florida.) Perhaps a new Lin-Manuel Miranda musical is in the works?

Earlier this week, my home institution, the University of Central Florida (UCF), hosted its fourth biennial “Faculty Authors’ Celebration” to honor professors who have published literary works in the previous two years, and among my favorite works to be showcased at this wonderful event was the beautiful book Smothered and Covered: Waffle House and the Southern Imaginary by my colleague and new friend Ty Matejowsky, who teaches anthropology at UCF. (Check out his bio here.)

Note: I will feature a few other works that caught my attention in the next day or two, before I begin my promised review (see here) of Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society by Philip K. Howard.

“Adam Smith wrote and lectured on a wide variety of topics during his lifetime—astronomy, jurisprudence, moral philosophy, the origins of languages, and, of course, political economy, just to name a few—but what does Smith have to say, if anything, about the relationship between law and liberty? As it happens, law professor Robin Paul Malloy and political theorist Paul Sagar both address this key question in their respective works, Law and the Invisible Hand (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Adam Smith Reconsidered (Princeton University Press, 2022)”. Thus begins my joint book review of Malloy and Sagar’s works!