December 06, 2004

JUDGE RICHARD POSNER -- "Introduction to the Becker-Posner Blog." Quotable:
Blogging is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge. The powerful mechanism that was the focus of Hayek’s work, as as of economists generally, is the price system (the market). The newest mechanism is the “blogosphere.” There are 4 million blogs. The internet enables the instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers. We have decided to start a blog that will explore current issues of economics, law, and policy in a dialogic format. Initially we will be posting just once a week, on Mondays. In time we may post more frequently. The first postings will be tomorrow, December 6.
And here they are -- Becker and Posner on Preventive War. The blogosphere suddenly takes another significant step into the major leagues of American culture.

Richard Posner is the author most recently of Catastrophe: Risk And Response among many, many other books.

Gary Becker is the author of Social Economics: Market Behavior in a Social Environment. Click on the link at the top for more information on these two important public intellectuals. Posted by Greg Ransom