This article was originally published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and can be found here. As an economic innovation, Uber exemplifies the way creative entrepreneurs discover new methods of providing better, less expensive consumer products and services. It also demonstrates how such creativity helps people navigate around barriers to entry created by government regulations […]
After acquiescing to the demands of pop icon Taylor Swift, Apple is set to release its new online music streaming service Apple Music on the 30th June. The tech giant will look to bring competition into a music streaming market where Spotify has remained the dominant player. That is not to say Spotify have not incurred strong […]
There is something odd going on at the heart of European football. Earlier this month, Barcelona sealed their fourth UEFA Champions League trophy in ten years, unseating their domestic rivals Real Madrid as title-holders. The top English teams and their colossal international fan bases watched glumly from the sidelines, as they had done for the […]
On the evening after the FIFA showdown in Switzerland at the beginning of this month, when a handful of delegates were arrested at a classy hotel near the lake, I met an elderly gentleman at a bus stop in Zurich. As we waited there together, he began a friendly small-talk, the focus of which was […]
Giant corporations are one aspect of modern capitalism that has come in for a lot of criticism in recent years. Detached from nation states, they are seen to be indifferent to concepts like job security and fair taxation. Detached from competition and accountability, they neglect customer service and allow executive pay to break the stratosphere. Big business is, […]
Can a country that produces tech innovators like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and over 350 Nobel laureates be producing legions of under-performing students? Looks like it. According to the international rankings for education, the average US student scores mediocrely at best. The low numbers would be worse, in fact, if terrific schools weren’t […]
What’s not to like about a digital single market in Europe? British shoppers would benefit from a wider choice of better-value products from online retailers across the European Union’s 28 member states. Start-ups in Tech City would immediately have access to a bigger market of 500 million Europeans. Fiercer competition would spur internet companies across […]
The anti-trust authorities are continuing to try to police the high tech markets. But are they up to the job? The new investigation opened by the European Commission into Google’s market practises raises, once more, that question. The European Commission has recently opened an investigation over possible abuse of a dominant position by Google in […]
Markets have been with us since the dawn of civilisation. The Neolithic Revolution, in 9500 BC when the Natufians settled down in the Levant and started cultivating teosinte, the ancestor of maize, really marks the start of market societies – involving specialisation, trade and technology. Yet the capitalism with which we are familiar – of […]
There has been a wave of commentary, debate, and downright flaming over the release of much-anticipated Apple Watch. While a new product from one of the most innovative and successful companies in the world does indeed deserve some attention, the sheer magnitude of the response seems a little out of proportion. This is, after all, […]
When is price fixing mad Marxist meddling in the market, and when is it justified as sound common sense? The answer, for Britain’s Conservative party, seems to be that it is the former when Labour leader Ed Miliband is announcing that he wants to freeze energy prices. But it is apparently perfectly sensible when the […]
In the lead-up to the May budget Treasurer Joe Hockey is talking tax. Without mincing words he has referred to corporations who don’t pay the “legitimate” amount of tax as “thieves”. In response it is mooted that Australia will implement a “diverted profits tax”, commonly called a “Google tax”, levied on revenues that corporations earn in Australia but report […]
Must capitalism and democracy go hand in hand? Does a successful capitalist system need to be a democracy? Since the modern rise of China and the economic success of its authoritarian model, which blends political control with rampant commercial competition, it has become fashionable to say that democracy is over-rated. Look at Singapore, say the […]
Former Conservative Chancellor Nigel Lawson’s famous dictum about the UK’s National Health Service is as apposite today as it was when he put it in his memoirs. In the View From Number 11, a deeply valuable and insightful book published in 1993, Lawson said: “The National Health Service is the closest thing the English have […]
I do not propose to repeat here my theories about why excessive consolidation and regulation have caused a deterioration in the quality and durability of basic household appliances. It is all in the piece I wrote for CapX back in December, which was sparked by bumping into Dominic Lawson. His dishwasher had also gone on […]
Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Iran in 1977. Showing an early gift for mathematics, she received a degree from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. After moving to the US, Maryam earned her PhD from Harvard before becoming a young professor at Stanford. Last summer she was awarded the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics. Maryam was the […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
