All Posts Tagged With: "natural rights"
Reflections on Self-Responsibility and Libertarianism
Nathaniel Branden is the author of 20 books, including The Art of Living Consciously, Taking Responsibility, and most recently, My Years with Ayn Rand. His Web site is www.nathanielbranden.net. The traditional American values of individualism, self-reliance, self-discipline, and hard work had their roots, in part, in the fact that this country began as a frontier [...]
1Apr2001 | Nathaniel Branden | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Perils of Positive Rights
Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University. One of the most powerful ideas opposed to the free society is a notion political philosophers call “positive rights.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? What could be wrong with being positive? Sounds like something out of Anthony Robbins or Norman Vincent [...]
1Apr2001 | Tibor R. Machan | 7 comments | ContinuedThe Declaration of Independence: It’s Greek to Me
The stirring words of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence said that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights. To Jefferson these rights existed before the founding of government and the function of government is “to secure these rights.” But he himself said that his ringing words did not express a new idea: “This was the object of the Declaration of Independence.
1Aug2000 | James Peron | 0 comments | ContinuedTrade and the Rise of Freedom
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland. This is adapted from a paper presented at the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s conference on “’The History of Liberty” at Auburn University, January 29, 2000. It is no exaggeration to say that trade is the keystone of modern civilization. As Murray Rothbard wrote, “The [...]
1Jun2000 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo | 2 comments | ContinuedPulling Us Apart
Recently, two Washington, D.C., think tanks—the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities—issued a study of the income gap between rich and poor American families titled “Pulling Apart.” According to the authors, by the late 1990s average income among families in the top 20 percent (top quintile) of the income distribution [...]
1May2000 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedStates’ Rights and Freedom
To the Editor: Gene Healy represents a disturbing trend among some libertarians to nostalgically recall the good old days when states were bastions of freedom. Those days never existed; and as James Madison depicts them in Federalist No. 10, even at the founding they were such bastions of tyranny that a stronger national government was [...]
1Feb2000 | FEE Admin | 3 comments | ContinuedA Life of One’s Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State
Ellen Frankel Paul is professor of political science and philosophy and deputy director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University. David Kelley, erstwhile professor of philosophy, social commentator, and executive director of the Institute for Objectivist Studies, has written a marvelous yet slim volume exposing virtually everything that is wrong [...]
1Jun1999 | Ellen Frankel Paul | 2 comments | ContinuedTensions in Early American Political Thought
According to the eminent historian of political thought J.G.A. Pocock, republican theory (or “civic humanism”) was the most significant current of eighteenth-century English and American political philosophy. In the form of “country ideology,” republicanism gave “left” and “right” critics of government policies a framework and believable rhetoric for their arguments.
1May1999 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 0 comments | ContinuedPhilosophy 1 On 1
James Otteson teaches in the department of philosophy at the University of Alabama. It is no secret that classical liberalism receives little attention in American academic philosophy, and then generally only as a historical artifact. What one hears is something like this: “No serious philosopher today believes that people can get on without substantial, organized [...]
1Mar1999 | James R. Otteson | 2 comments | ContinuedGovernment and the Market: Chicken or Egg?
John Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation, a nonprofit think tank based in Raleigh, North Carolina. One evening not too long ago, I was invited to participate in a debate about state welfare policy. As much of our work at the John Locke Foundation had been directed toward various welfare bills in the [...]
1Mar1998 | John Hood | 0 comments | ContinuedIndividualism and Freedom: Vital Pillars of True Communities
Edward Younkins is professor of accountancy and business administration at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, West Virginia. Individualism is the view that each person has moral significance and certain rights that are either of divine origin or inherent in human nature. Each individual exists, perceives, experiences, thinks, and acts in and through his own body and [...]
1Jan1998 | Edward W. Younkins | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Efficiency of Natural Rights
The Hobbesian contention that an almost biological conflict of interest exists between human beings, who must compete for scarce necessities, is a stumbling block for those who espouse natural rights. Certainly, it is a common avenue of attack used by critics of natural law. They demand to know how, in a Hobbesian state of nature, [...]
1Dec1997 | Wendy McElroy | 1 comment | ContinuedBusiness and Morality in a Free Society
Dr. Younkins is professor of accountancy and business administration at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, West Virginia. Few would deny that capitalism is the most productive and efficient economic system, especially after the collapse of Soviet Communism. But some critics still contend that capitalism is not a moral system. Yet morality is impossible unless one is [...]
1Nov1997 | Edward W. Younkins | 2 comments | ContinuedMarket-Based Environmentalism vs. the Free Market
Dr. Cordato is the Lundy Professor at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. For a much more detailed discussion of this issue see Roy E. Cordato, “Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: They’re Not the Same,” The Independent Review, vol. 1, no. 3 (Winter 1997). People on both the left and right are realizing [...]
1Sep1997 | Roy Cordato | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 by Conor Cruise O’Brien
University of Chicago Press • 1996 • 385 pages • $29.95 Dr. Skoble is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southeast Missouri State University. Although Thomas Jefferson is popularly known as a great statesman, historians have long been aware that he, like everyone else, was not as purely good as his popular image would suggest. [...]
1Jul1997 | Aeon J. Skoble | 1 comment | ContinuedFree Trade and Human Rights in China
James A. Dorn is vice president for academic affairs at the Cato Institute. This essay is a condensed version of his article in the Spring/Summer 1996 Cato Journal. The best way to promote human rights around the world is to promote free trade. Trade liberalization improves ties among nations, increases their wealth, and advances civil [...]
1May1997 | James A. Dorn | 3 comments | ContinuedFEE Classic Reprint: The Source of Rights
The late Frank Chodorov edited The Freeman for a time, was associate editor of Human Events, and the author of several books, including The Income Tax (New York: Devin Adair, 1954), from which this selection has been reprinted by permission. This essay shows why a socialistic society must decline because it fails to respect private [...]
1Mar1997 | Frank Chodorov | 0 comments | Continued-
The Latest
Government Beneficence and Other Fairy Tales
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
