Act I finds the protagonist boldly proclaiming an original and bold explication of the economics and history of the gas and electric industries. In Act II, we use the weapons developed by our protagonist to render much that passes for sound energy policy both tragic and comedic.
In Act III, we search deeply within ourselves to discern if the protagonist provides answers to the modern vexations that ail us. Come let us listen to Friedman Milton as he disarms the protagonist.
Black and White–or Gray?
The Bradley Project seems to dichotomize the world into free market capitalism and political capitalism. To paraphrase George Orwell, free markets good; political markets bad.
I have no quarrel with Bradley’s conclusion that both energy generally and natural gas and electricity in particular have been victims of political capitalism in all its hoary forms.…
Continue ReadingYesterday, I fawningly reviewed Robert Bradley’s Political Capitalism Project for providing information and insight to where much of our economy has gone wrong in the last 80 years, i.e., allowing companies to succeed by using political muscle instead of free market acumen.
The Bradley Project provides a sturdy worldview for thinking about energy policy. Today, I will critique both recent and historical energy policy by relying on Bradley’s framework for assessing the implications of political versus market capitalism. Tomorrow I will argue the legitimate role of government in energy markets and give an example where active government policy is needed.
Back to 1973
The modern era of energy policy began on October 17, 1973, the day that OPEC announced an oil embargo against the U.S. With very few exceptions, since that day, energy policy, on both sides of political aisle, deteriorated until finally, and literally, it fell off a cliff with the Obama Administration’s embrace of the “green economy” and its hostility to carbon energy.…
Continue Reading“Edison to Enron … [is] the second part of a three-volume series on the history of American energy, told through the distinction between productive and predatory capitalism. Bradley is a very much underrated economic historian, largely because of his ‘amateur’ [nonacadmic] status, but there is a remarkable amount of learning in his books.”
– Tyler Cowen, ‘What I’ve Been Reading,’ Marginal Revolution, November 15, 2011.
Last Friday afternoon in our nation’s capital, Robert L. Bradley, Jr., a prominent figure in the esoterica of energy markets, unveiled the Project on which he has labored for a decade before a full room at the American Enterprise Institute. Kenneth Green moderated, and comments were provided by Stephen Hayward and yours truly. My formal remarks follow.
The Project
Enter stage right, our protagonist with The Bradley Project.…
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