Economic myths

Cafe Hayek has a list of the twelve most pernicious economic myths.

1. All law is created by, and enforced by, the state.
2. The collective is just like an individual; it has feelings, desires, likes, and dislikes; it chooses and it acts.
3. Democratically chosen government officials generally act with the intention of promoting the public interest, and they are uniquely positioned and qualified to determine what the details of the public interest are and to know best how to promote that interest.
4. The chief cause of modern prosperity is technology.
5. More people necessarily means a level of per-capita well-being that is lower than it would otherwise be.
6. To insist that government do nothing more than stick to protecting citizens against the initiation of violence is to insist either that each person is an asocial, atomistic loner motivated only by narrow selfishness, or that each person should be an asocial, atomistic loner motivated only by narrow selfishness.
7. To oppose regulation by government is to oppose regulation; it is to desire that businesses are unconstrained in their industrial and commercial actions.
8. Prices and wages are arbitrarily set by businesses.
9. Corporate managers are driven by stock-market pressures to run their firms so that profits are maximized in the short-run, at the expense of the long-term productive capacities of the companies.
10. Imports are the cost we suffer in order to enjoy the benefit of exporting.
11. A trade deficit is bad.
12. A trade deficit is debt.