Articles From January/February 2009

Features

Raw Milk and the Sour State
By William E. Pike

Take a moment, if you will, to think about the milk you buy from the grocery store. Whether it is an... 

In Praise of Educational Pluralism
By Danny Shahar

I often hear it said that if the government did not determine what our children are taught, we would... 

Poker and the Free Market
By Robert Stewart

Until recently I was a director and the chairman of the audit committee of one of Bermuda’s banks,... 

Michael Oakeshott on Rationalism in Politics
By Gene Callahan

The British philosopher and historian Michael Oakeshott is a curious figure in twentieth-century intellectual... 

Taxation as Vandalism
By Lachlan Markay

Imagine a small town with only a few small businesses. The best, most prosperous business is the general... 

Gun Control: An Economic Analysis
By Scott A. Kjar and Jason Robinson

In Economics 101 we teach students about several fundamental concepts, including the relationship between... 

Liquid Lies
By Becky Akers

Government programs rely on deception from start to . . . well, none of them ever seems to finish, but... 

Columns

A Man Who Knew the Value of Liberty
By Lawrence W. Reed

[This column was adapted from one published first by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on its website... 

On the Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle, Part I
By Donald J. Boudreaux

One of the most vivid memories of my undergraduate years is of sitting for hours in my carrel in the... 

Nixon’s New Economic Plan
By Robert Higgs

Richard Nixon had a crisis mentality. In 1962, unhappily out of public office, he wrote an autobiographical... 

What Happened to Market Discipline?
By John Stossel

During the late presidential campaign Barack Obama said, “[Today’s economic problems are] a stark... 

How Bad Can it Get?
By Charles W. Baird

In August the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) in Washington state released its State of Labor 2008... 

Bailing Out Statism
By Sheldon Richman

The key to understanding the saga of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the recently nationalized twin government-sponsored... 

Book Reviews

Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class
By Alan Reynolds

Robert Frank, a professor of economics at Cornell, has long argued that affluent Americans spend too... 

Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Law
By George Leef

In recent years there have been numerous highly publicized federal raids against companies that had violated... 

Economic Facts and Fallacies
By Gary M. Galles

You don’t have to read far to find the focus of Thomas Sowell’s latest book, Economic Facts and Fallacies.... 

The War Between the State and the Family: How Government Divides and Impoverishes
By Raymond J. Keating

Sympathy and compassion help make humans caring, moral beings. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics,... 

Departments

Theory and Crisis
By Sheldon Richman

What might be even more distressing than the current buildup of the corporate state in response to the... 

Individualism Clashes with Cooperation? It Just Ain’t So!
By Charles Johnson

Individualists get a bad rap in politics these days. That should come as no surprise; politics these...