Archive for Jude Blanchette

The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America

It is a curious footnote in the history of the libertarian movement that three of its leading inspirations voted for Franklin Roosevelt for president. The irreverent H. L. Mencken voted as much against Hoover as he did for FDR. Ayn Rand, like many, bought into Roosevelt’s rhetoric of fiscal discipline. But Isabel Paterson knew better, [...]

9Jul2010 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

Mugged by the State

Most Americans believe that if they raise their kids well, attend church, work 9 to 5, and pay their taxes, they can pretty much go about life unhindered by the government. Certainly there are the annoyances and trivialities that occur when visiting the department of motor vehicles or the post office, but grisly tales of [...]

8Jul2010 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

Education Is the Effect, Not the Cause, of Affluence

Despite its abysmal record, the United Nations wears a mantle of legitimacy in the popular discourse. Almost every daily newspaper or nightly newscast reports some UN-sponsored agency’s activities regarding world hunger, climate change, disease, or some other problem. All too often the UN is on the wrong side of reality. Take its latest “solution” to [...]

7Jul2010 | Jude Blanchette | 1 comment | Continued

Government Is Better than the Market at Producing Human Capital?

Invoking the Founding Fathers is always risky. We typically use the term as an amalgamation, as in “the Founders believed X.” But as a reading of even one semi-serious history of the American founding will show, their beliefs were divergent and contentious. Many libertarians employ the term “Founders” as if to provide a degree of [...]

1Sep2007 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

We Have Enough Globalization?

Jude Blanchette is a freelance writer living in Shanghai. The debate over free trade is, and has been for over 200 years, quite contentious. In reading over the historical debates, it often seems as if no ground has been made by the advocates of a global, borderless economy. Indeed, this is what makes reading Adam [...]

1Jun2007 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

The Shortcomings of Government Charity

Jude Blanchette is a freelance writer living in China. In their book, Myths of Rich and Poor, W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm observe, “Some part of human nature connects with the apocalyptic. Time and again, the pessimists among us have envisioned the world going straight to hell.” To be sure, “pessimists” apparently run most [...]

1May2007 | Jude Blanchette | 4 comments | Continued

The Stock Market Is a Swindle?

Jude Blanchette is a freelance writer living in China. Michael Kinsley, founding editor of the online magazine Slate, columnist for the Washington Post, and American editor of the Guardian (UK), is a smart guy. His columns are often witty and incisive. Even where Kinsley is wrong (and he often is) he provides the reader a [...]

1Apr2007 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

We Should Trust the Leader, Not the Law? It Just Ain’t So!

Los Angeles Times columnist Max Boot has a message for the American people: put all your fears of diminishing civil liberties back in the closet; the good guys are running the show.  That, at least, was the message in his column last January, “The Wiretaps Shouldn’t Bug Us,” prompted by a 2005 New York Times [...]

1Sep2006 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

The Freeman: Through the Years

In an age when lots of think-tanks, foundations, organizations, and institutes publish magazines extolling the benefits of free markets, it is hard to imagine the early 1950s, when only a handful of pro-free-market publications existed, most notably The Freeman.

1Jan2006 | Jude Blanchette | 0 comments | Continued

Opponents of the "Crown Jewel"

There was a time when self-reliance wasn’t such a tough sell. Today, however, the thought of dismantling Social Security strikes most as somehow un-American. It is, after all, the “cornerstone of the New Deal.” It saved the poor and elderly from indigence and provided dignity in a monthly paycheck. Legend has it that 70 years [...]

1Sep2005 | Jude Blanchette | 1 comment | Continued

Intervention Explains Economic Success?

On the first day of an introductory statistics class a student is likely to learn the maxim “correlation isn’t causation.” Simply put, the correlation (a statistical relationship) between two variables doesn’t mean that one caused the other. That the sun rises when roosters crow does not mean that roosters cause the sun to rise. To [...]

1Jun2005 | Jude Blanchette | 5 comments | Continued

The Great Outsourcing Scare of 2004

Last year a protectionist wind filled the air. All the good jobs, Americans were told, were disappearing faster than one could say “New Delhi.” On opening his local newspaper, the typical American would find articles alerting, “As job exports rise, some economists rethink the mathematics of free trade.” Or: “Thomson Trims 1,535 Jobs by Shifting [...]

1Mar2005 | Jude Blanchette | 2 comments | Continued

Hazlitt on Gold

Henry Hazlitt concentrated much of his thinking and writing on the topic of money, producing two books and dozens of articles and columns on the subject. His writings during the dark years following World War II, published on the editorial page of the New York Times and in Newsweek, offered intelligent readers ammunition against the [...]

1Nov2004 | Jude Blanchette | 1 comment | Continued

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