The Politics of Cocaine: How U.S. Foreign Policy Has Created a Thriving Drug Industry in Central and South America

William L. Marcy has written an extensive and cogent historical critique of the U.S. war against the cocaine trade originating in Latin America. As the title indicates, he shows how this counterproductive war has led to a thriving drug industry in the Americas. Marcy criticizes U.S. policy for conflating the drug war and the Cold [...]

Gaining a Nation, Losing the Republic: Reconstruction, 1863–1877

A dead president, carpetbaggers, scalawags, burning crosses, white hoods, an occupied South, Boss Tweed, Thomas Nast cartoons, the New York Democratic machine, and an imprisoned Jefferson Davis—all provide vivid images of the dozen years following the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s forces at Appomattox in April 1865. As every historian knows, often to his chagrin, [...]

Of Fallible Umpires and Rogue Judges

There is a striking similarity between blown calls by umpires in baseball and blown calls by judges in our legal system. We now know, unambiguously, that umpires make mistakes—sometimes excruciatingly costly ones. According to baseball purists, those mistakes “are part of the game.” Yet there is a rising chorus of calls for Major League Baseball to [...]

Drugs, Economics, and Liberty

Only a few people would dispute that narcotics can harm people, whether that harm is in the form of damage to the body, mental and physical dependency, or threats to social relationships. However, there is not nearly as much consensus as to what the correct public response to narcotics use and sales is. Ideas range [...]

Government: More Incompetent than Ever

Most intellectuals support big government, and millions of people depend on it. So why, with thousands of laws, millions of employees working to carry out those laws, and trillions of dollars spent, is it in trouble? The most popular big-government programs–like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid–are going broke. These entitlements account for more than half [...]

New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

Not everyone loved President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even in 1936, when he enjoyed his most lopsided electoral victory, almost 17 million voters cast their ballots for Alf Landon. During Roosevelt’s long presidency, he attracted vigorous literary critics, such as H. L. Mencken, John T. Flynn, and Garet Garrett. But the winners write the history, and [...]

A Crisis of Political Economy

The current state and the current banking sector require each other. They are so reciprocally intertwined that each is an extension of the other.

Remember this the next time somebody tells you, as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert did, that “free market madmen” caused the current financial crisis that is threatening to undermine the global economy. There is no free market. There is no “laissez-faire capitalism.” The government has been deeply involved in setting the parameters for market relations for eons; in fact, genuine “laissez-faire capitalism” has never existed. Yes, trade may have been less regulated in the nineteenth century, but not even the so-called Gilded Age featured “unfettered” markets.

Bankruptcy Doesn't Equal Death

Good article on the more honorable option of bankruptcy for the failed auto companies in the WSJ today by Freeman columnist Don Boudreaux:Bankruptcy Doesn’t Equal Death

Detroit’s Flirtation with Economic Suicide

Until recently, I had thought the city of Detroit had done everything in its power to drive people and businesses away. I was wrong. From deep down in its barrel of apparently endless crackpot schemes, the Detroit city council pulled out one more. And what a piece of work it was—proof beyond the most shadowy [...]