Lost Articles

The Constitution says that to be elected to the U.S. Senate, a person has to be 30 or older, a citizen for at least nine years, and a resident of the state from which the candidate is elected. Alas, it says nothing about knowing American history. Good thing for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). He’d have [...]

The Shortcomings of Government Charity

Jude Blanchette is a freelance writer living in China. In their book, Myths of Rich and Poor, W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm observe, “Some part of human nature connects with the apocalyptic. Time and again, the pessimists among us have envisioned the world going straight to hell.” To be sure, “pessimists” apparently run most [...]

The Struggle to Subdue Luck

There was a time in Western societies under the rule of law when a person’s circumstances, such as his relative position in society, could only be branded as unjust if they could be shown to result from some breach of the rules of justice. The rules were enshrined in ageless conventions and elaborated in common [...]

Eye on the Ball

Like clockwork, on Aug. 28 the New York Times produced another page-one story purporting to show that living standards for many Americans have fallen, this time because wages in recent years have failed to keep up with inflation. This has been happening despite rising productivity and even taking into account the shift from cash to [...]

Book Reviews – October 2006

• Reviving the Invisible Hand: The
  Case for Classical Liberalism in the Twenty-First Century
  by Deepak Lal Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
  
• Laws of Fear
  by Cass Sunstein Reviewed by Donald J. Boudreaux
  
• Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an
  Empire’s
  Slaves
  by Adam Hochschild Reviewed by Becky Akers
  
• Why Men Earn More
  by Warren Farrell Reviewed by George C. Leef
  

Book Reviews – June 2006

The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly — reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein — reviewed by Gary M. Galles

Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the Worlds Water Crisis by Fredrik Segerfeldt — reviewed by George C. Leef

Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee — reviewed by Tom Lehman

I’d Push the Button—To Establish Freedom Right Now

In April 1946, a month after the late Leonard E. Read established the Foundation for Economic Education, he gave a talk in Detroit called “I’d Push the Button.” He said that if there were a button on the podium that would immediately abolish all controls and regulations on the U.S. economy, he would push it. [...]

Business and Ethics

The Rev. Edmund Opitz is a contributing editor and a former member of FEE’s staff and board of trustees. This is reprinted from the December 1983 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. Mr. X manufactures gizmos in a plant which uses the varied skills of a thousand employees. These people might cheerfully acknowledge that [...]

Free Trade Has Been Refuted?

Perhaps the most settled of all economic propositions is that coercive interference with peaceful exchange is detrimental. Yet we often hear groups that want to stifle trade for their own benefit claim that some statistic or argument proves that free trade is a bad policy in general and that protectionism is good for the country. [...]