All Posts Tagged With: "government intervention"
The Four Mistakes of Nonlibertarians
George Leef is book review editor of The Freeman. In Libertarianism: For and Against (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), two philosophers debate the merits of libertarianism. Arguing in favor is Professor Tibor Machan, a contributing editor to The Freeman. His opponent is Professor Craig Duncan, who attempts a refutation of libertarianism and seeks to persuade readers [...]
1Jun2007 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedInequality Matters
In the controversy raging over whether income inequality in America is growing a lot or a little, some pro-market people say it doesn’t much matter. This attitude is unjustified, not to mention harmful to the cause of individual freedom because it misses the bigger picture. How could growing economic inequality not matter? I’d understand that [...]
1May2007 | Sheldon Richman | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Great Contraction, 1929–33
The recession that began in mid-1929 need not have become a disaster. Many downturns had occurred previously in U.S. economic history, and nearly all of them had been fairly shallow and soon followed by recovery and continued growth. In the nineteenth century most people had believed that the government neither knew how nor possessed the [...]
1Apr2007 | Robert Higgs | 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 even a [...]
1Oct2006 | Lawrence W. Reed | 1 comment | ContinuedHurricane Katrina Shows that Government Is Too Small?
By now everyone is aware of the almost inconceivable
incompetence of the Federal Emergency Management Agencys (FEMA) response to Hurricane Katrina.Those who cherish liberty might think this episode would bolster their cause.However, as usual the states intellectual bodyguards have attempted to use this disaster to justify ever higher budgets and even more dictatorial powers.
The Futility of the Government Airline Bailout
In recent years many airlines have struggled, and following
9/11 Congress passed a massive aid package aimed at rescuing the industry. After years of government aid it is appropriate to ask what has been accomplished.
No Buts about Freedom
Back in the early 1970s, the late Leonard E. Read, founder and first president of FEE, wrote a short piece in The Freeman called Sinking in a Sea of Buts. He said it was not uncommon or someone to say to him,I agree with you in principle, but . . . The but invariably referred to some exception from the principle of freedom in the form of a desired government intervention. The problem, Read pointed out, is that when everyones exceptions to freedom are added up, well, freedom ends up being sunk by all the buts.
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 | ContinuedDrops and Splashes
My wife, Karol, and I recently painted some rooms of our home. When I bought the paint at Home Depot, the helpful saleswoman showed me a new product: a plastic lid that slips on a gallon-sized paint can more easily than, but just as snugly as, the original metal lid. And it’s much easier to [...]
1Feb2005 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedHow Nineteenth-Century Americans Responded to Government Corruption
James Rolph Edwards is an associate professor of economics at Montana State University-Northern. From its origin as a distinct secular scientific discipline with the French Physiocratic school in the middle of the eighteenth century, and the British classical school that followed, economics had a pro-market, limited-government orientation. Indeed, intellectual historians and political philosophers often refer [...]
1Apr2004 | James Rolph Edwards | 2 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews
Rethinking the Great Depression: A New View of Its Causes and Consequences by Gene Smiley Ivan R. Dee • 2002 • 169 pages • $24.95 Reviewed by George C. Leef Recently, I found myself in an e-mail argument with a friend who is intelligent and well-educated—but not in economics. I had made the point that the best macroeconomic policy is one [...]
1Sep2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedRegulatory Roadblocks to Turning Waste to Wealth
Pierre Desrochers is a professor of geography at the University of Toronto. The small industrial town of Kalundborg, located 75 miles from Copenhagen, shouldn’t be on the radar screen of most visitors to Denmark. It has nonetheless become something of a Mecca for “sustainable development” theorists the world over. Kalundborg’s main attraction, apart from its [...]
1Sep2003 | Pierre Desrochers | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment-Reformulated Gas: Bad in More Ways than One
The amended Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1990 called for cleaner automobile-engine combustion and a reduction in tailpipe emissions. To meet these goals, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directed the petroleum industry to modify the composition of gasoline to comply with the “Oxygenated” and “Reformulated” Gasoline (RFG) Programs. While only those parts of the country [...]
1Sep2003 | Michael Heberling | 1 comment | ContinuedBut what about . . . ?
My Virginia license plate, adorning both bumpers of my Japanese car, reads FRE TRDE. I always mention this to audiences so they know exactly where I stand on the question of how free consumers should be to spend their incomes on foreigners’ goods and services. I am proudly, completely, confidently, and unconditionally a free trader. [...]
1Sep2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment Needs to Lose Weight
How ironic that just as an already bloated government is taking on major new powers, it is exhorting us to lose weight. That’s exactly what former Surgeon General David Satcher did before leaving office. In his “Call To Action To Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity,” Dr. Satcher wrote that “Our ultimate goal is to [...]
1Jun2002 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedPoverty and Wealth: India Versus Hong Kong
“The government of India regulates nearly everything, so there’s very little progress; whereas in Hong Kong the government keeps its hands off . . . and the standard of living has multiplied.” -JOHN TEMPLETON1 The mutual fund magnate John Templeton traveled around the world during the 1930s, noting in particular the extreme poverty in two [...]
1Feb2002 | Mark Skousen | 2 comments | ContinuedSome Questions
I’m writing these words in the early-morning serenity of my home, two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. All appears peaceful, fine, and as it was before September 11. My son, Thomas, is upstairs sleeping the sweet sleep of a child too young to comprehend what is happening. The world that he understands is [...]
1Jan2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | Continued-
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I admit I’m amused by the unceasing economic and political malarkey that flows from the pundits at... Read More
The Myths of the Interventionists
One of the most pernicious myths in the economic history of the twentieth century is the belief that... Read More
JPMorgan Chase and Casino Banking
JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the nation’s leading banks, revealed in May that a London trader racked... Read More
Individualism, Trade-Unions, and “Self-Governing Combinations”
Who do you imagine said this? “[Trade-unions] seem natural to the passing phase of social evolution,... Read More
Bubbles, Malinvestment, and Higher Education
Many commentators are asking whether the next big bubble to burst will be the debt associated with the... Read More
