Archive for Jim Powell
Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is the author of FDR’s Folly, Wilson’s War, Bully Boy, Greatest Emancipations, The Triumph of Liberty, and other books.
Thomas Jefferson’s Sophisticated, Radical Vision of Liberty
Jefferson expressed a sophisticated, radical vision of liberty with awesome grace and eloquence. He affirmed that all people are entitled to liberty, regardless what laws might say. If laws don’t protect liberty, he declared, then the laws are illegitimate, and people may rebel. While Jefferson didn’t originate this idea, he put it in a way that set afire the imagination of people around the world, Moreover, he developed a doctrine for strictly limiting the power of government, the most dangerous threat to liberty everywhere.
1Jul1995 | Jim Powell | 1 comment | ContinuedRichard Cobden’s Triumphant Crusade for Free Trade and Peace
Mr. Powell is editor of Laissez-Faire Books and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. The nineteenth century was the most peaceful period in modern history. There weren’t any general wars between the fall [...]
1Jun1995 | Jim Powell | 1 comment | ContinuedJohn Stuart Mill’s Immortal Case for Toleration
Mr. Powell is editor of Laissez-Faire Books and Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty (1859) is the most famous work about toleration in the English language. It [...]
1May1995 | Jim Powell | 0 comments | ContinuedHerbert Spencer: Liberty and Unlimited Human Progress
Fabled steel entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie hungered to know the secret of human progress. During the early 1880s, he found out after he joined a Manhattan discussion group. There he heard about British philosopher Herbert Spencer, who had written volumes on the subject. Liberty, Spencer explained, is the key as free marketswithout government intervention-provide powerful incentives for people to continuously improve life.
1Apr1995 | Jim Powell | 0 comments | ContinuedAdam Smith- "I had almost forgot that I was the author of the inquiry concerning The Wealth of Nations"
Before Adam Smith, it seemed that most people believed government was necessary to make an economy work. In Britain and Europe, governments promoted economic self-sufficiency as a bulwark of national security. They subsidized “strategic” industries like mining and silk-making. Government helped protect apothecaries, bricklayers, woodmongers, playing-card makers, and myriad other workers against what they considered unfair competition.
1Mar1995 | Jim Powell | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Education of Thomas Edison
Mr. Powell is editor of Laissez-Faire Books. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. In 1854, Reverend G. B. Engle belittled one of his students, seven-year-old Thomas Alva Edison, as “addled.” This outraged the youngster, and he stormed out of [...]
1Feb1995 | Jim Powell | 0 comments | Continued-
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