Daily Articles

Disaster in Red: The Hundredth Anniversary of the Russian Socialist Revolution

by Richard M. Ebeling November 7, 2017

November 7,, 2017, marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Russian (or Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia that happened on that date in November 1917, which lead to the communist “dictatorship of the proletariat” and ushered in an epoch of totalitarian tyranny and mass murder both in Russia and in every other country where socialism was put into practice. Historians estimate ...

Capitalism and the Free Society, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling November 6, 2017

Part 1 | Part 2 The free enterprise, or capitalist, system has done more to improve the material condition of humanity than any other economic arrangement of human cooperation in all of recorded history. Yet, “capitalism” constantly stands condemned and accused of being the cause of humanity’s wows, while in reality nothing is further from the truth. In ...

What Is the Optimal Top Marginal Income Tax Rate?

by Laurence M. Vance November 3, 2017

It’s not just American bureaucracies that are headquartered in Washington, D.C. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), with its staff of approximately 2,700, has been headquartered in Washington, D.C., since its inception in 1945. The IMF “is an organization of 189 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and ...

One Year Later, Is Trump a Blessing or a Curse to the Deep State?

by John W. Whitehead November 1, 2017

Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President? … We’ve come to a point where every four years this national fever rises up — this hunger for the Saviour, the White Knight, the Man on Horseback — and whoever wins becomes so immensely powerful … that when you vote ...

The National Security-State and JFK, Part 4

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2017

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Within a few hours of John Kennedy’s assassination, an anti-Castro organization in New Orleans called the DRE (Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil) issued a press release publicizing that Lee Harvey Oswald, who had just been arrested in connection with the assassination, was a communist. The allegation ...

Why Ruby Ridge Still Matters

by James Bovard November 1, 2017

In the wake of violent clashes between protesters last August in Charlottesville, many people demanded a federal crackdown on suspected dangerous extremists. The federal government has previously carried out similar heavy-handed suppression efforts with disastrous results. Rather than intellectually purifying the nation, such efforts are far more likely to turn nitwits into martyrs. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Washington’s ...

Middlemen, Government, and the Free Market

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2017

There are multitudes of ways in which goods are exchanged on the free market. The most common way that most people purchase merchandise is by shopping at a general or specialty retail store: Walmart, Sears, Kroger, Home Depot, Office Depot, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens, and so on. But in addition to retail stores, goods are also sold through auctions, ...

Sarah Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld: Abolitionists and Feminists

by Neera K. Badhwar November 1, 2017

The American women’s rights movement was born in the bosom of the abolitionist movement. The 19th-century abolitionists and feminists Sarah (1792–1873) and Angelina Grimké (1805–1879) were the first female agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society, as well as pioneers of the American women’s rights movement. Their arguments for women’s rights anticipated many of John Stuart Mill’s arguments in The ...

Debauching the Currency

by James Cook November 1, 2017

Often people who make gloomy predictions about the economy have an ulterior motive. They want to sell a newsletter, a book, precious metals, or even storage food. In some cases they have no basis for their views other than an opinion. I like to think that what I write originates with the economic thinkers of the Austrian School of ...

Another Bloody American Century

by Matthew Harwood November 1, 2017

The Violent American Century: War and Terror since World War II by John W. Dower (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017; 184 pages) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was livid. “In the dead of night,” the California Democrat wrote on Twitter in July, House Speaker Paul Ryan did something “underhanded and undemocratic.” He stripped out her bipartisan amendment to repeal ...

Gun Control Is a Losing Issue for Democrats – And They Know It

by Scott McPherson October 31, 2017

The high water mark for gun control in the United States was the so-called, but misnamed, “Assault Weapon Ban,” which was passed through Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. A CNN/USA/Gallup poll the year before found that 77 percent of Americans supported the ban. The law didn't ban “assault weapons,” but merely the importation of certain ...

Capitalism and the Free Society, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling October 30, 2017

Part 1 | Part 2 One of the leading ideological punching bags for well over one hundred years has been the ideas, institutions, and impact of “capitalism” on society. Think of something someone does not like in the world and the guilty party causing it is almost always the same – “capitalism.” But what is capitalism, and ...