Columns
The Freedom Philosophy as a Calling
I hope that this column becomes a place where my calling becomes part of your calling and helps you to spread the freedom philosophy. I’ll do my best to live up to my end, and I hope you’ll do the same.
5Nov2009 | Steven Horwitz | 12 comments | ContinuedRegulating Executive Pay Can Reduce Systemic Risk
Late last month White House pay czar Ken Feinberg unveiled executive pay rules for 175 key players in the nation’s seven-firm TARP-assisted sector. The new rules generated different bundles of base and incentive pay for the affected executives, along with a good bit of grumbling and grousing. Unsullied by the frowns and accompanying [...]
4Nov2009 | Bruce Yandle | 16 comments | ContinuedThe “Stimulus” Stopped the Recession? Not So Fast!
The “stimulus” has not “saved” anything. It has been a huge misdirection of resources from things that would meet real-live individual needs to those things that meet the “needs” of politicians to be reelected.
4Nov2009 | William L. Anderson | 4 comments | ContinuedBen Bernanke Saved the Day?
Instead of being “brave,” Bernanke has been reckless, just like a young driver playing “chicken.” There is a huge difference between bravery and bravado, and Bernanke’s actions reflect the latter not the former.
28Oct2009 | William L. Anderson | 2 comments | ContinuedCompetition
Give Me a Break!
Competition
by John Stossel
John Stossel is the hosts of Stossel on Fox Business and the author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong. Copyright 2009 by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.
“Choice, competition, reducing costs—those
are the things that I want to see accomplished [...]
Rule of Law versus Legislative Orders
Webster’s dictionary defines law as all the rules of conduct established and enforced by the authority, legislation, or custom of a given community or group. Why are there laws in the first place? The most apparent answer is, were there not a particular law, some people would not conduct themselves according to the law in [...]
23Oct2009 | Walter E. Williams | 1 comment | ContinuedScience Fiction and Economic Fiction
Thomas Macaulay Boudreaux, age 12 and my only child, is a huge fan of Star Trek. Actually, even an italicized “huge” doesn’t quite capture the extent of Thomas’s fascination with, and knowledge of, the franchise. From Captain Pike through Mr. Spock to Ensign Sato, Thomas knows and loves anything and everything Star Trek.
So in August [...]
Rutherford B. Hayes and the Financing of American Prosperity
Rutherford B. Hayes, America’s nineteenth president (1877–1881), is generally dismissed as a minor, even below-average president. Matthew Josephson, the journalist-chronicler of the late 1800s, insisted that Hayes had “no capacity for . . . large-minded leadership.” Other historians have written him off as just another cipher among a string of forgettable chief executives of the [...]
23Oct2009 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 1 comment | ContinuedChild Labor and the British Industrial Revolution
Profound economic changes took place in Great Britain in the century after 1750. This was the age of the Industrial Revolution, complete with a cascade of technical innovations, a vast increase in production, a renaissance of world trade, and rapid growth of urban populations.
Where historians and other observers clash is in the interpretation of these [...]
A Tribute to the Polish People
The cause of liberty saw memorable highs and unconscionable lows in 1989. Surely that year will be best remembered as the year Soviet hegemony over central Europe disintegrated, paving the way for the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. Free people everywhere should toast the brave people of one nation in particular–Poland–for the [...]
23Sep2009 | Lawrence W. Reed | 6 comments | ContinuedArrogance
It’s crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. It’s even crazier to do it in a few months.
Yet that is what some members of Congress presumed to do. They intended, as the New York Times put it, “to reinvent the nation’s health care system.”
Let that [...]
Looking in the Mirror
Quite frequently, I hear, “How do you justify working at a state university and holding libertarian views? That’s hypocritical!”
The question is not as easy to answer as I would like–a fact that makes the accusation understandable (but, I hope, in the final analysis untrue).
My employer, George Mason University, is indeed a government-created and -owned outfit. [...]
The Shame of Medicine: The Case of General Edwin Walker
In 1962 James Meredith, an African-American student, tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi. His admission was opposed by Ross Barnett, the Democratic governor of the state, former Major General Edwin A. Walker (1909–1993), a decorated hero of World War II and prominent “right-winger,” and a group of segregationist white students. To ensure Meredith’s [...]
23Sep2009 | Thomas Szasz | 3 comments | ContinuedA Family of Heroes
In any major city, particularly a capital, the great majority of statues and memorials pay tribute to monarchs and presidents, priests, generals, and statesmen. This reflects the way history is commonly understood and taught: as the story of the achievements of those associated with political power, government, and war. Memorials to the historical figures associated [...]
23Sep2009 | Stephen Davies | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Real Meaning of Privilege
“They live in an expensive mansion, fly first-class to foreign countries, and eat at the finest restaurants. They send their kids to private schools. They’re so privileged.” How often have you heard some variant of the lines above? I’d bet it’s a lot. Yet, typically, the word “privileged” is inaccurate. We certainly all know or [...]
23Sep2009 | David R. Henderson | 6 comments | ContinuedIn the Grip of Madness
“Thank God we had the federal government last week to bail out the private sector!” That is what a rather statist friend of mine declared a year ago as the economy tanked, almost gleeful that the financial crisis seemed to be proving how much we all need a massive federal establishment to both regulate and [...]
19Aug2009 | Lawrence W. Reed | 24 comments | ContinuedThe Rise of Big Business and the Growth of Government
Most people learn about the relation between the rise of big business and the growth of government in the form of what amounts to a morality play. In the most widely disseminated version, presented in nearly every American history textbook, the emergence of big business (playing the role of the devil) is said to have [...]
19Aug2009 | Robert Higgs | 1 comment | Continued-
Latest Toon
-
Book Reviews
-
Montessori, Dewey and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market In Education
By Jerry Kirkpatrick
