Liquid markets are the basic prerequisite to industrialization and growth. But where do liquid markets come from? A naïve libertarian might say that markets are self-organizing, and economic growth picked up historically when governments simply stepped out of the way.
While there are certainly some respects in which this is true, . . .
One doesn’t need much detailed historical knowledge to be struck by
just how recent many of the most deeply held moral and political
convictions in the modern West are. Prior to just a few hundred years
ago, it would have been considered eccentric (at best) or seditious (at
worst) to . . .