I occasionally run across someone who thinks that gold is the only real form of money. These people call dollars “fiat money” (or “fiat currency”), and argue that real money is based on gold. In fact, this makes no sense. All money is a social convention: money is something which people will normally accept in…

Globalization is the process of removing trade barriers around the world, so that everybody lives in the same unconstrained market. The arguments in favor of globalization are clear: trade barriers make the market less efficient. If I have to pay a tariff to sell my widgets in Switzerland, then my Swiss customers have to pay…