Adam Smith Institute

1 day ago | adamsmith.org | Madsen Pirie

Taxation is collected under the threat of punishment such as fines, asset seizure, or imprisonment, making it non-consensual. If an individual took our money under threat of force, it would be considered theft. The fact that it is done by the state doesn't change the moral nature of the act. Many people would claim that individuals have a natural or moral right to the fruits of their labor and property. Certainly it is a right we agree to give to others in order to justify claiming it for ourselves.

1 day ago | adamsmith.org | Tim Worstall

One of those differences between political, bureaucratic, action and markets. In a market environment the Dodd Frank rules on conflict minerals would be dead and buried now. They’re not:Securing peace will be tricky. The roots of the Congolese crisis are deeply tangled in the colonial Scramble for Africa.

2 days ago | adamsmith.org | Madsen Pirie

My colleague, Dr Eamonn Butler, will not like this proposal at all because he has expressed the view that Bank holidays are an anachronism that should be abolished, although he did once grudgingly tell the ASI staff that they could take Christmas morning off. There is, however, a strong case for scrapping the early May UK holiday and replacing it with a Trafalgar Day holiday on October 21st.

2 days ago | adamsmith.org | Tim Worstall

The only correct answer to that question is that we’re all as rich as Croesus. Human labour being replaced by machines just isn’t a problem. Which is something we suspect writers at The Guardian should, in fact, know:The less generous answer is that it’s about what it’s always about: money. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen once famously said: “Software is eating the world.” Up until now there’s only been so much it could eat.

3 days ago | adamsmith.org | Madsen Pirie

One idea to improve UK national healthcare has been the proposal to give everyone an NHS debit card they could use to access private treatment if the NHS delay in treating them were deemed unacceptably long. This idea comes up fairly often in healthcare policy debates, sometimes called ‘voucher’ or ‘health credit’ schemes. Giving everyone an NHS debit card to use for private treatment if NHS waits are too long could have several potential merits.