All Posts Tagged With: "rule of law"
Rule of Law versus Legislative Orders
Webster’s dictionary defines law as all the rules of conduct established and enforced by the authority, legislation, or custom of a given community or group. Why are there laws in the first place? The most apparent answer is, were there not a particular law, some people would not conduct themselves according to the law in [...]
23Oct2009 | Walter E. Williams | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Rule of Lore
“This is a nation of laws not of men (and women).” With the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, we will be hearing that a lot in the coming weeks. The nomination of a Supreme Court justice occasions much public debate over exactly what judges are supposed to do—and not do. Thus [...]
29May2009 | Sheldon Richman | 3 comments | ContinuedTGIF: The Rule of Lore
“This is a nation of laws not of men (and women).” We will be hearing a lot about that in the coming weeks. The rest of TGIF, “The Rule of Lore,” is here.
29May2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
What Do We Do About the Subsidy of History? I concurred on one point with “The Subsidy of History” by Kevin Carson (June 2008). It is not sound to view the historical development of capitalism as though it evolved strictly by fairness, without including the vices of mankind. Surely history is better stated by Burton [...]
1Nov2008 | FEE Admin | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Reviews – October 2008
Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism by Jörg Guido Hülsmann Ludwig von Mises Institute • 2007 • 1143 pages • $50.00 Reviewed by Bettina Bien Greaves Biographer Guido Hülsmann has written a magnificent book, describing in detail not only the life of Ludwig von Mises, but also his writings, his intellectual development, and his importance. [...]
1Oct2008 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedThe End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
By Jeffrey D. Sachs Reviewed by Jude Blanchette
1Mar2007 | FEE Admin | 1 comment | ContinuedWhat Is Going on in France?
Pierre Garello is a professor of economics at Aix-Marseille University, France. It is sometime painful for a liberal—I will be using that word in its old, continental, sense—to live in France, especially in southern France: so much light, so many beauties given by nature, and at the same time so much wealth wasted! Riots; strikes; blockage [...]
1Oct2006 | Pierre Garello | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Political Sociology of Freedom: Adam Ferguson and F. A. Hayek
When I was a young economics major back in the 1970s, one of the standard arguments that many of my professors would hurl at me was: “Your ideal of free-market capitalism may have been all right 200 years ago, when society was a lot simpler, but in a society as complex as ours is today, [...]
22Apr2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedWhy Classical Liberals Care about the Rule of Law (And Hardly Anyone Else Does)
In 1776 John Adams declared that America was “a
nation of laws, not men.” Politicians of all persuasions
have used Adams’s phrase ever since to claim
the moral high ground. Such rare agreement among the
political classes, even if only rhetorical, is an indication
of the power of the idea of the rule of law.
Basis of Liberty
In one of his fables Aesop said: “A horse and a stag,
feeding together in a rich meadow, began fighting
over which should have the best grass.The stag with
his sharp horns got the better of the horse. So the horse
asked the help of man. And man agreed, but suggested
that his help might be more effective if he were permitted
to ride the horse and guide him as he thought best.
So the horse permitted man to put a saddle on his back
and a bridle on his head.Thus they drove the stag from
the meadow. But when the horse asked man to remove
the bridle and saddle and set him free, man answered, ‘I
never before knew what a useful drudge you are. And
now that I have found what you are good for, you may
rest assured that I will keep you to it.’”
Offshore Prosperity
Quick—without reading the next paragraph of this article, name the five largest financial centers in the world. Answers: London,Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. New York is the financial capital of one of the largest and wealthiest nations in the world; London, the former capital of a globe-spanning empire and still the [...]
1Sep2005 | Andrew P. Morriss | 4 comments | ContinuedEconomic Freedom: The Path to Development
Economic development has historically been exceptional rather than typical. As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has observed in The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, capitalism has been successful mainly in the West. Consequently, there are tremendous income disparities around the world. In 2000, real income per person [...]
1Apr2005 | Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr. | 0 comments | Continued1914 and the World We Lost
Ninety years ago this month, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated by a Bosnian-Serb nationalist in the city of Sarajevo. It served as the spark which set off the events that started World War I later that summer. It also [...]
1Jun2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedFree Markets, the Rule of Law, and Classical Liberalism
The history of liberty and prosperity is inseparable from the practice of free enterprise and respect for the rule of law. Both are products of the spirit of classical liberalism. But a correct understanding of free enterprise, the rule of law, and liberalism (rightly understood) is greatly lacking in the world today. Historically, liberalism is [...]
1May2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | ContinuedThe State Is the Source of Rights?
In 1776 a reliable indicator of an American’s opinion of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence was his attitude toward the 1649 execution of England’s King Charles I. Liberals, who shared Jefferson’s principles, believed Charles to have been a tyrant and hence most deserving of losing his head. Conservatives, resisting the call to [...]
1Dec2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 2 comments | ContinuedRent-Seeking: A Primer
Readers of Ideas on Liberty often come across references to the term “rent-seeking.” Usually from the context it’s plain that it refers to something undesirable, but what exactly is it? The idea of rent is an old one in economics. In mainstream economics it refers to a payment to the owner of a fixed factor [...]
1Nov2003 | Sandy Ikeda | 12 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Foundation of Freedom
The late Howard Buffett was a U.S. representative from Nebraska (1943–1949 and 1951–1953). This article, condensed from a lecture at Midland College in Fremont, Nebraska, is reprinted from The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, December 1956. For more information on Buffett see Joseph R. Stromberg, “Howard Homan Buffett: Old Rightist Extraordinaire” at www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s042401.html. A clear understanding [...]
1Sep2003 | Howard Buffett | 1 comment | Continued-
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