Asphalt Paves the Way
By American Oil & Gas Historical Society -- June 18, 2020A major theme of political economy is the undesigned order of the market under private ownership, voluntary exchange, and the rule of law. By permission from the American Oil & Gas Historical Society, MasterResource will publish articles documenting the progress of the market-driven U.S. energy industry. (This article was originally published by AOGS in 2014.)
American mobility would soon depend on a petroleum product from the bottom of the distillation process.
[Pennsylvania Avenue was first paved bitumen imported from Trinidad bitumen in 1876. Thirty-one years later, a better asphalt derived from petroleum distillation was used to repave the famed pathway to the Capitol, above.]
President Ulysses S. Grant directed that Pennsylvania Avenue be paved with Trinidad asphalt. By 1876, the president’s paving project covered about 54,000 square yards, according to A Century of Progress: The History of Hot Mix Asphalt, published in 1992 by National Asphalt Pavement Association.…
Continue ReadingPetroleum Trash to Treasure: Market Incentives Spark Human Ingenuity
By Joanna Szurmak -- June 17, 2020Editor Note: This post is by two leading scholars working in the Julian Simon, Austrian School, Institutionalist School traditions. Authors of Population Bombed!, Pierre Desrochers and Joanna Szurmak are important figures at MasterResource.
Even greater creativity and market complexity can be observed in the history of the petroleum production and refining industries. Market institutions and incentives provide the framework from which a plenitude of individuals and companies make their contribution.
Black, Black Progress
Petroleum was first sought after in western Pennsylvania in the 1850s, as it proved a more economical source of kerosene (a combustible hydrocarbon used for illumination), which had previously been produced from coal, oil shale, and bitumen. Kerosene was seen as a superior and more reliable alternative to animal and vegetable oils, the best of which were derived from sperm whales.…
Continue ReadingJulian Simon: High School Debaters Hear His Message
By Greg Rehmke -- June 16, 2020“I began publishing Julian Simon’s upbeat analytical articles on the benefits of population growth…. [O]ur ‘Econ Update’ newsletter was mailed to every high school with a debate program. Julian Simon’s Ultimate Resource thus joined the battle of ideas against ‘Growth DAs’ in debate classes, clubs, and tournaments across the country.”
When I worked at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in New York in the mid-1980s, Julian Simon used to call from time to time. Sometime he would send a letter with just a leaf inside.
High school debate was my connection to Julian Simon.
Discovering Julian Simon
I learned about The Ultimate Resource (1981) from Andrea Rich’s Laissez-Faire Books catalog. A few years earlier, Economics in Argumentation had outsourced a debate resource guide to a former debater for the national high school debate topic.…
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