All Posts Tagged With: "social engineering"
Freedom and the Role of Government
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE. What is the role of government? This has been and remains the most fundamental question in all political discussions and debates. Its answer will determine the nature of the social order and how people will be expected and allowed to interact with one another—on the basis of either [...]
1May2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedAnother National Disaster in the Making: Government Reconstruction of New Orleans
Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans at the end of August. What followed was a further disaster in the form of government incompetence and confusion at the local, state, and
federal levels. Rarely have we seen a better instance of what Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises once rightly called “planned chaos.”
Ninety Years of Monetary Central Planning in the United States
Ninety years ago this month, on December 23, 1913, the Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing a national central-banking system in the United States. The governing board of the Federal Reserve was organized on August 12, 1914, and the Federal Reserve banks opened for operation on November 16, 1914. On the surface, the preamble [...]
1Dec2003 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedWeighing In
Last spring the Arkansas legislature passed a law requiring schools to compute each student’s body mass (using the Body Mass Index, BMI) and record it on report cards. The BMI generates a number based on a person’s height and weight, and is supposed to indicate something about one’s health. However, it’s been criticized for not [...]
1Nov2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedGrutter v. Bollinger: A Constitutional Embarrassment
“All animals are created equal—but some are more equal than others.” So goes the crucial line in George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Grutter v. Bollinger makes one think of that line, since it gives constitutional approval to the policies used at many colleges and universities that group applicants by [...]
1Nov2003 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedLawyers Run Amok
Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of several books. As Washington, D.C., prepared for the descent of thousands of anti-globalization protesters last fall, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf proposed deploying the ultimate weapon: trial lawyers. Hit the demonstrators with a [...]
1Apr2003 | Doug Bandow | 1 comment | ContinuedUtopia Versus Eutopia
Utopianism has a long-running history that includes turning the 1900s into the bloodiest century in human experience. Typically utopian schemes are founded on the premise that individual self-interest must be subjugated for the purported greater public good. As such, utopianism is fit for only a utopia: the term derives from the Greek words ou (“not”) [...]
1Mar2003 | Daniel Hager | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Reviews – 2002/3
While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today by Donald Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan St. Martin’s Press o 2000 o 483 pages o $32.50 Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy and Defense Policy edited by Robert Kagan and William Kristol Encounter Books o 2000 o 401 pages [...]
1Mar2002 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism
Robert Fogel argues that “egalitarianism” is a national ethic that has manifested itself in American history in three successive forms. During the eighteenth, and most of the nineteenth, century it took the form of desiring for everyone an “equality of opportunity” for material success. Toward the end of the nineteenth, and throughout most of the [...]
1Jan2002 | Sam Bostaph | 0 comments | ContinuedThat’s Not What We Meant to Do: Reform and Its Unintended Consequences in Twentieth-Century America by Steven M. Gillon
The art of economics, as Henry Hazlitt might put it, is to uncover the unanticipated effects of an act. In “That’s Not What We Meant to Do,” historian Steven M. Gillon details the history of five federal acts. He states, “My goal is fairly modest: to tell a few stories of how unintended consequences occur, to speculate about their significance, and to inspire more research and discussion about this often mentioned but infrequently explored theme.”
1Jul2001 | Philip Murray | 0 comments | ContinuedBlessed Debt
Should we cut taxes or pay off the national debt? What’s missing from this picture? Aside from the fact that paying off the debt need not be a priority (there is no connection between the debt and economic growth), the question is a classic case of the Fallacy of the False Alternative. If we accept [...]
1Apr2001 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedAfter Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State
Americans have given up freedom and self-government for a mess of pottage. Modern “liberalism,” argues political science professor Paul Gottfried in his insightful new book, rests on a “patricide” of the older liberalism. Whereas liberalism and democracy were once opposed concepts, they are now conflated, to the great detriment of the former. Meanwhile, “democracy,” which [...]
1Oct2000 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Quest for Cosmic Justice
The Quest for Cosmic Justice offers no big surprises to anyone familiar with Sowell’s work. Its theme of arrogant elites’ tyrannizing ordinary folk has sounded prominently in Sowell’s writings since at least the late 1970s. But the book percolates throughout with ingenious smaller-scale insights that make it well worth reading. By “cosmic justice” Sowell means [...]
1Jul2000 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedSeeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Amazing progress has been made in the twentieth century. The Western world has grown tremendously rich, and many developing countries around the world have “emerged.” Today, most people enjoy living conditions that their ancestors could have only dreamed about. But the twentieth century has also witnessed horrific brutality. Millions have been killed in wars. And [...]
1Oct1999 | Aaron Steelman | 0 comments | ContinuedBreak This Vile Addiction
Janneral Denson, who is black, was seven-months pregnant when she returned to her home in Florida after visiting Jamaica. U.S. Customs agents at the Fort Lauderdale airport greeted her with accusations that she had swallowed packets of drugs to smuggle them into the United States. Ignoring a physician’s opinion that Ms. Denson’s stomach contained no [...]
1Sep1999 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 4 comments | ContinuedService Without a Smile
Stop the presses! Here’s a news flash that will send shock waves through the country: school-based compulsory community service doesn’t engender the spirit of giving. Imagine that! When students are forced to be compassionate volunteers, they rebel and find ways to get around the system. Who’d have believed it? In a recent article in the [...]
1Nov1998 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedHuman Ignorance and Social Engineering
Throughout most of intellectual history, society has been considered to be the result of someone’s design. In his multi-volume Law, Legislation, and Liberty, the social theorist F. A. Hayek referred to this position as “constructivist rationalism” and argued vigorously against it. In his 1974 Nobel Memorial Lecture, titled “The Pretence of Knowledge,” Hayek expressed a [...]
1May1998 | Wendy McElroy | 8 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
