Anti-Force Is the Common Denominator

Allow me to alter something the great humorist Will Rogers said: “I’m not a member of any organized group. I’m a libertarian.” I wince a bit as I say that, though. Let me explain. Labels such as “libertarian” aren’t always illuminating. Sometimes they serve as expedient substitutes for thought—as in, “Oh, he’s one of those!” [...]

Prejudicial Terms in the Healthcare Debate

Have you noticed that in the healthcare coverage in the media and the discussion by the politicians, the sellers of goods and services are called “special interests”? Consumers and “the uninsured” are never called special interests. Of course, the term is intended to prejudice the sellers’ position as they try to protect themselves from expropriation [...]

Book Reviews – December 2006

• The Ethics of the Market
  by John Meadowcroft Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
  
• Peddling Panaceas: Popular Economists _in the New Deal Era
  by Gary Dean Best Reviewed by Burton Folsom, Jr
  
• Philosophers of Capitalism: _Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond
  by Edward W. Younkins Reviewed by Aeon J. Skoble
  
• Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in _Black America
  by John McWhorter Reviewed by George C. Leef
  

Dialectics and Liberty

Ten years ago the first two books of what has become known as my “Dialectics and Liberty” trilogy were published. Those books—Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (SUNY Press) and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Penn State Press)—together with the culminating work, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Penn State Press), constitute a defense of dialectical method [...]

Ayn Rand and Business

What sort of book is this? Perhaps the best answer is to say that an alternate title could be: Ayn Rand for Dummies. Indeed, that might be a better title, for the book is a very elementary introduction to Rand and her thought. It is well written and organized, providing an accurate account of the [...]

Greenspan: The Man Behind Money by Justin Martin

Perseus Publishing · 2000 · 284 pages · $28.00 Reviewed by Alexander Franco He has been called the second most important man in America and the nation’s most enigmatic public official. Yet the public knows little of Alan Greenspan’s personal life or of the secretive inner workings of the Federal Reserve System. Justin Martin has [...]

The Culture of Classical Liberalism

Tadd Wilson is a freelance writer in Fairfax, Virginia. Despite what is taught in most universities, the essentially classical liberal ideas of free-market economics and limited government have won the basic test of any doctrine: does it beat the best alternative? The evidence is clear, whether in the collapse of the former Soviet Union’s planned [...]

Vienna and Chicago: A Tale of Two Schools

Since its inception, the Foundation for Economic Education has been associated with two free-market schools, the Austrian school of Ludwig von Mises and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago school of Milton Friedman. Mises, after leaving Vienna for New York City, was closely involved with Leonard Read, FEE’s founder. He spoke frequently at FEE’s headquarters in Irvington-on-Hudson, and wrote regularly for The Freeman.

Who Said What About Liberty? (a quiz)

The literature of liberty offers double pleasure. You can often enjoy both dynamic ideas and great eloquence. Just for fun, see if you can match the following unforgettable quotations with their authors. The quotations are representative views of many of the greatest thinkers in the history of liberty: A. Lord Acton B. Benjamin Franklin C. [...]