In Praise of an Uncommon Woman
Popular literature is full of praises for “the common man,” but I am much more impressed by the men and women who stand apart from the crowd. Some wise observer once said that only three kinds of people exist in the world: a very few who make things happen, a somewhat larger number who watch [...]
1Dec2007 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedHans F. Sennholz, 1922–2007
After a long and productive life, a man of great faith passes on and is welcomed into Heaven. He is greeted with an invitation. “What would you most like to do?” he is asked.
“I always enjoyed giving speeches about what it was like to live through the Johnstown Flood,” he responds. “I’d love to tell [...]
Prophets of Property
In 1800, fewer than 1 million people lived in London; a century later, well over 6 million. As the 20th century dawned, London had already been the most populous city on the planet for seven decades. Britain’s population as a whole soared from 8 million in 1800 to 40 million in 1900. In the previous [...]
1Jul2007 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedA Tribute to a Polish Hero
One year ago the world lost a gifted science fiction writer and critic of totalitarianism when Poland’s Stanislaw Lem died in March 2006. Lem was best known internationally as author of the classic Solaris—twice adapted for the silver screen—but the majority of his fiction featured damning allegories against the suppression of the human spirit. Bruce [...]
1Mar2007 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedTwo Who Made a Difference
In 20 years of traveling to 67 countries I’ve come across some pretty nasty governments and some darn good people. To be fair I should acknowledge that I’ve also encountered some rotten people and a half-decent government or two. The ghastliest of all worlds is when you have rotten people running nasty governments, a combination [...]
1Dec2006 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedGrowing Up Means Resisting the Statist Impulse
A few months ago, I walked into a restaurant in Naples, Fla., and said “A nonsmoking table for two, please.” The greeter replied, “No problem. All restaurants in Florida are nonsmoking by law. Follow me.”
For a brief moment as we walked to our table, I thought to myself: “Good. No chance of [...]
Government Putts
Mark Twain once said that the game of golf was nothing more than “a good walk spoiled.” But to avid golfers, such impertinence obscures a cardinal truth: The sport is infinitely complex and not for everybody.
Golf requires patience, concentration, and forbearance. Distractions must be ignored or compensated for by careful planning. A serious player must [...]
Free-Market Moments on the Silver Screen
If you believe in capitalism, going to the movies is all too often a painful exercise. Even those you expect to be apolitical turn up gratuitous dialogue that peddles Hollywood’s pervasive but infantile anti-market sentiments. Apparently there’s a lot of money to be made criticizing the very marketplace that enables even its most superficial critics [...]
1May2006 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedAfricans Whom Westerners Should Heed
At the G8 Summit in Scotland last July, hosted by Britains Tony Blair, European and North American politicians (all of them white) cried crocodile tears for the plight of black Africans. Echoing a gaggle of actors, rock stars, socialist ideologues, Third World dictators, and other learned economic-development
experts, they called for another transfer of wealth from developed nations to the undeveloped ones of Africawhich, by most measures, would seem to exclude no country on the continent.
Ideas and Consequences ~ Presidents and Poverty
Conventional wisdom holds that fighting poverty
has only lately been a concern of American
presidents, and that before Franklin Roosevelt
it was hardly a concern at all. This stubborn error
persists.
The Golden Calf of Democracy
“Democracy,” H. L. Mencken once said, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” He also famously defined an election as “an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
Mencken was not opposed to democracy. He simply possessed a more sobering view of its limitations than [...]
Telecom Regulations Don’t Create Competitive Markets
Lawrence Reed is president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market research and educational organization in Midland, Michigan. The author would like to thank Diane Katz, director of science, environment, and technology policy at the Mackinac Center, for her assistance in the preparation of this column.
Few of us would understand the jargon employed [...]
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Book Reviews
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The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
