This book presents the basic principles of economics in a simple and very clear style. Are there advantages to government intervening in the economy? What effects does this intervention have? Why is freedom important in economic matters? Are there cases when it is necessary to limit or even stifle this freedom? How should wealth be produced? How should it be redistributed? Is competition a good thing or a bad thing? And is it inevitable? Regarding the rich, the poor and taxation, what can be considered fair? Is there reason to be scandalized, as happens in some circles? The book also examines special cases: drug prices, the financial problems of the health care system, expenses imposed on students, and other topics as well.

Op-ed on the Conseil de la fédération’s project.

The search for profit is necessary to decide how to allocate resources.

Although he died at the young age of 49, French journalist and politician Frédéric Bastiat wrote dozens of pieces and thoroughly demolished the economic fallacies that were in vogue in his country over 150 years ago. Some of these, like his Petition from the candle makers, are worth more than the hundreds of treatises that have been written on trade policies as an efficient and clear demonstration of the absurdity of protectionism.

The benefits of the free market.

The economic and moral advantages of freedom.

Based on supporting data, the Swedish author Johan Norberg shows that the opening up of trade and international capital flows is an indicator of progress, especially for the world’s less fortunate. In a systematic way, he refutes the arguments of those who oppose free trade and capitalism. Featured in several prestigious newspapers and magazines such as the Financial Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and The Times, the work of Johan Norberg was awarded the Anthony Fisher International Memorial Award in 2002, a prize that rewards the remarkable works published by independent institutes of research in public policy. Now MEI, in collaboration with les Editions Saint-Martin, has made this significant contribution to the debate on globalization available to French-speaking readers.

How should we rate the work of civil servants?

Why is the state always growing?

Why some countries get richer and others not.