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What’s in a price? Good question. How can you be “enslaved” to something like a price, to something that doesn’t eat, sleep, or breathe? Good question. What does it mean to wage a war against this inanimate enslaver? Good question. 

Join me today with Ryan Bourne, the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato institute. Bourne paints a picture of a bloodless yet economically catastrophic war. It's one which leaves us vulnerable as the weapons of the market (dollars) diminish in our pockets (inflation) and the state of war (price controls) depletes the quality and quantity of our conquests (market interactions) until they are vastly inferior to the opposition’s (free markets). 

Want to explore more?

• Russ Roberts, Where Do Prices Come From? at Econlib.
• Michael L. Davis, Price Gouging is Fine, but Humans are Better, at Econlib.
• Michael Munger on John Locke, Prices, and Hurricane Sandy, an EconTalk podcast.
• Rosolino Candela, Can Price Controls Fight Inflation? at Econlib.
• Michael Cannon on Prices and Health, a Great Antidote podcast.

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