All Posts Tagged With: "private property rights"
A Simple Solution
There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong. —H. L. Mencken I have devised a simple plan for improving Americans’ health by drastically reducing everyone’s weight, thereby significantly increasing longevity and reducing medical costs. All we need to do is revalue the pound. Instead of a pound being [...]
24Aug2011 | Richard W. Fulmer | 1 comment | ContinuedLysander Spooner: American Anarchist
It was in the early 1970s that I first learned of Lysander Spooner’s ideas. The six volumes of his Collected Works, which were published in 1971 and which I purchased soon thereafter, played an important part in my intellectual development as a voluntaryist. I was the person who in 1976 unearthed Spooner’s essay “Vices Are [...]
24Aug2011 | Carl Watner | 7 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Can There Be Free Trade in a Mixed Economy? To the Editor: Although I don’t see any flaws in your arguments about the theory of free trade in your column for the April 2004 issue of The Freeman, you should at least acknowledge the distortions in most any nation’s economy because of government intervention and [...]
5Jul2010 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedHow Shall We Live?
What is civilization and how is it to be achieved? How can we live together in peace and social harmony? What is wealth and how do we acquire it? Why are so many people poor and why do they remain poor? Finally, are there objective standards of behavior that must be respected if societies are [...]
24Mar2010 | and Paul A. Cleveland | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Wisdom of Nien Cheng
Nien Cheng, author of Life and Death in Shanghai (1986), died in Washington last November at the age of 94. She was an incredibly courageous woman and the embodiment of grace and wisdom. She loved traditional Chinese culture, but her world was shattered on August 30, 1966, when the Red Guards ransacked her home and, [...]
24Mar2010 | James A. Dorn | 4 comments | ContinuedEnvironmentalists in Outer Space
J. H. Huebert (jhhuebert@jhhuebert.com) is an attorney and a former FEE intern. Walter Block (wblock@loyno.edu) is Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Chair in Economics and professor of economics at Loyola University, New Orleans. A longer version of this article appeared in the University of Memphis Law Review. Save the earth! That’s been the mantra of [...]
1Mar2008 | and Jacob H. Huebert | 0 comments | ContinuedAdam Smith in China
James Dorn is a China specialist at the Cato Institute and professor of economics at Towson University in Maryland. A shorter version of this article first appeared in the Times of India, January 24, 2007. China’s transition from plan to market since 1978 has not only increased prosperity but also has led to a new [...]
1May2007 | James A. Dorn | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Policy of Machiavelli’s Prince
Niccol Machiavelli, statesman and writer of
Renaissance Florence, got what countless
writers have sought and only a few have
achieved: his name became immortal. It is known not so
much as a proper noun but as an adjective, and that
adjective is not one in which he could take great pride.
Truman’s Attempt to Seize the Steel Industry
In U.S. history many of the most drastic incursions on private property rights have sprung from the conjunction of a threatened work stoppage, owing to a union-management dispute, and the government’s desire to expedite a war-production program. Such a conjunction underlay the government’s nationalization of the railroads, the telegraph lines, and the Smith & Wesson [...]
1Mar2004 | Robert Higgs | 2 comments | ContinuedProperty and Prosperity: The Vital Link
Contributing editor Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. Professor Richard Pipes has written extensively about the connection between property rights and prosperity in the history of Russia. Others, including Peter Bauer and Amartya Sen, have noted the connection in various places around the globe. Without [...]
1Jan2004 | Tibor R. Machan | 0 comments | ContinuedPlanned Chaos: Industrial Waste Recycling in Communist Economies
Pierre Desrochers is a research associate at the Montreal Economic Institute (www.iedm.org). Most advocates of “sustainable development” assume that traditional market incentives, such as the price system and private property rights, lead to wasteful and environmentally harmful practices. Not surprisingly, some proponents, such as bestselling authors Paul Hawken, Sim Van Der Ryn, and Stuart Cowan, [...]
1Jul2003 | Pierre Desrochers | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Economics of Smoking Bans
The war on smoking is proceeding with rapid progress. Anti-smoking activists are successfully fighting for smoking bans in restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, and other places open to the public. California and Delaware have banned smoking in virtually all restaurants and bars. Smoking is prohibited in restaurants in Maine, and voters in Florida recently approved a [...]
1Jul2003 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 3 comments | ContinuedBeware the History Police
Preserving historic homes and buildings can be a good thing. Early 1900s storefronts, centennial homes with turrets and gables, and old gas-lighted public buildings are among the many aged structures that offer wide appeal if refurbished faithfully. Most people appreciate old things that are scarce but well-kept because they educate us, remind us of our [...]
1Jul2002 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Rise of the West
Throughout almost the entire span of human history, material privation and chronic insecurity were the norm. Not even those at the peaks of social status and political power could enjoy the creature comforts and consumer delights that “poor” people take for granted in the West today. At times, certain populations fared somewhat better—in ancient Greece [...]
1Jul2002 | Robert Higgs | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Great Breakthrough and Its Cause
Reviewed by Robert Lawson Julian Simon’s final work before his untimely death is perhaps his most ambitious undertaking. He wants to explain why at least some parts of humanity, after millennia of virtual stagnation, suddenly began a rapid increase in living standards around the years 1750-1800. Simon labels this phenomenon Sudden Modern Progress (SMP). His [...]
1Jul2002 | Julian L. Simon edited by Tim | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Taking things for granted isn’t always a bad idea. Anyone who checks the morning paper to see if the sun will rise in the east is wasting his time. But the role of property has been taken for granted, with awful results. Economics textbooks may discuss incentives to invest, but they seldom, if ever, make [...]
1Jan2002 | William B. Conerly | 0 comments | ContinuedIndividual and Society: Irreconcilable Enemies?
Contributing editor Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. Do individual rights clash with the interests and “rights” of communities? Some say that they do, at least sometimes. And some think they clash quite often. But an individual “right” that can be abrogated at will whenever [...]
1Oct2001 | Tibor R. Machan | 1 comment | Continued-
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