All Posts Tagged With: "welfare state"
Ought Implies Can
Too often ethical pronouncements have an air of hubris about them, as the pronouncer simply assumes we can do what he says we ought to do. By contrast, economics demands some humility. We always have to ask whether it’s humanly possible to do what the ethicists say we ought. To say we ought to do something we cannot do, in the sense that it won’t achieve our end, is to engage in a pointless exercise. If we cannot do it, to say that we ought to is to command the impossible.
24Apr2009 | Steven Horwitz | 4 comments | ContinuedThe War Between the State and the Family: How Government Divides and Impoverishes
Sympathy and compassion help make humans caring, moral beings. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, understood that, as illustrated by his emphasis on sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Often, however, sympathy and compassion are transformed from tools of moral judgment and action into weapons of blind ideology, irrational emotionalism, and cynical politics. They [...]
Taxation as Vandalism
Imagine a small town with only a few small businesses. The best, most prosperous business is the general store, which sells citizens many of their daily necessities. Just across the street is a shop that sells and installs windows. Unlike the general store, the window shop is not doing well at all. The town is [...]
20Jan2009 | Lachlan Markay | 14 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – December 2008
Is the Welfare State Justified?
by Daniel Shapiro
Cambridge University Press • 2007 • 309 pages • $80.00 hardcover; $27.99 paperback
Reviewed by George C. Leef
Americans have lived with the welfare state for so long—more than 70 years—that for most, it is simply a fact of life. Asking whether it is justified would seem about as pointless as [...]
The German Economic Miracle and the “Social Market Economy”
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
This summer marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the post-World War II German “economic miracle.” When the war ended in Europe in 1945, Germany was in a shambles. Its major cities had been destroyed either from Allied bombing or urban combat. Millions of its citizens had died [...]
Marching to Bismarck’s Drummer: The Origins of the Modern Welfare State
Soviet socialism may now be a thing of the past, but there is one form of statism that still dominates the world, including the United States: the modern welfare state. Its tentacles of paternalistic control reach into every corner of personal and social life. It has made all of us “children of the state,” and [...]
1Dec2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedAre High Taxes the Basis of Freedom and Prosperity?
In the November 2006 Scientific American, Jeffrey Sachs, economic consultant to governments and the UN, argues (yet again) for higher U.S. taxes and more government officials with ever-increasing powers over their subjects. These perennial and inevitable conclusions are hung (here) on a Nordic peg.
According to Sachs, F. A. Hayek, “the Austrian-born free-market economist, . . [...]
From the President: The American Spirit of Enterprise
America has been the land of opportunity and free enterprise, an example and a hope for tens of millions of people around the world. In America both the industrious worker and the creative entrepreneur have been hailed as the complementary producers of prosperity and rising standards of living.
Class and caste were meant to play no [...]
Book Reviews – 2007/9
- The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements
by Lynne Viola Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
- In our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State
by Charles Murray Reviewed by Michael Tanner
- Actual Ethics
by James R. Otteson Reviewed by Tibor Machan
- Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History
by Paul Moreno Reviewed by George C. Leef
1Sep2007 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued
Capitalism and the Family
It is hard to think of a human social institution that has undergone more change in less time than has the family in the last several decades. Although the magnitude and rapidity of those changes are exaggerated by the unusual stability in the family from just after World War II until the mid-1960s, the 40 [...]
1Jul2007 | Steven Horwitz | 2 comments | ContinuedSocialism after Hayek
By Theodore A. Burczak Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
1Jul2007 | agardner | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Four Mistakes of Nonlibertarians
George Leef is book review editor of The Freeman.
In Libertarianism: For and Against (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), two philosophers debate the merits of libertarianism. Arguing in favor is Professor Tibor Machan, a contributing editor to The Freeman. His opponent is Professor Craig Duncan, who attempts a refutation of libertarianism and seeks to persuade readers that [...]
A Sennholz Sampler
Editor’s Note: Hans Sennholz, a former president and trustee of FEE and long-time chairman of the economics department at Grove City College, died in June at age 85. We honor his memory with three of the many articles he contributed over the years.
“Jobs and Trade,” July 1996
Unemployment is the great puzzle of our time. It [...]
Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them
By Philippe Legrain Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
1May2007 | agardner | 0 comments | ContinuedThe 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 national [...]
Ending the Welfare State Through the Power of Private Action
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
Despair about the current direction of American public policy is easily understood. In whichever direction we look, government seems to be growing larger and more intrusive. For example, in February the Associated Press (AP) reported that in spite of the 1996 welfare reform, which has reduced the number of [...]
The Money Lawyers: The No-Holds-Barred World of Todays Richest and Most Powerful Lawyers
By Joseph C. Goulden Reviewed by Martin Morse Wooster
1Apr2007 | Martin Morse Wooster | 0 comments | Continued-
Latest Toon
-
Book Reviews
-
The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
