Freedom Daily Archive

The Return to a Global Economy

by Ian Vasquez March 1, 2001

AFTER TWO WORLD WARS, the Great Depression, and experiments with socialism interrupted the liberal economic order that began in the 19th century, the world economy has now returned to the level of globalization that it previously enjoyed. By the 1970s, trade as a share of world economic output had already reached its pre–World War I height. During the past ...

Book Review: Global Fortune

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2001

Global Fortune: The Stumble and Rise of World Capitalism edited by Ian Vasquez (Washington, D. C.: Cato Institute, 2000); 295 pages; $18.95 cloth; $9.95 paperback. IN SEPTEMBER 2000, David Henderson, a prominent free-market economist in Great Britain, delivered the annual Wincott Lecture at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London. His theme was “Anti-Liberalism 2000.” Henderson detailed the wide and ...

Abolish the Nonessentials

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2001

THE POMP AND ceremony surrounding George W. Bush’s nomination of new department heads is now complete. The discussion and debate now center on the qualifications of each of the new nominees. But who is asking the crucial question: Rather than appointing the best-qualified people to run the various departments, why not simply abolish the departments themselves? After all, wasn’t this ...

The Fundamental Rights of the European Union: Individual Rights or Welfare-State Privileges? Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 IN NOVEMBER 1934, during the dark years of growing tyranny throughout Europe, British historian Ramsey Muir penned a short article that appeared in the pages of the journal The Nineteenth Century and After. His theme was “civilization and liberty.” He asked how it was that of all the civilizations around the world, only the ...

Election Nonsense

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2001

NO ONE WHO SPENT HOURS watching the coverage of the presidential election could have failed to notice the constant, almost desperate, invocation of two ideas: “Every vote counts” and “The will of the people must be respected.” It was almost as if the speakers were trying to convince themselves. I followed the presidential election ...

The IRS: Still a Grave Threat to Freedom

by James Bovard February 1, 2001

THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION just succeeded in brow-beating Congress into giving the Internal Revenue Service one of the largest budget increases in the agency’s history. Clintonites had warned that, without a windfall for the revenuers, America was at grave risk of insufficient tax audits. Clinton persuaded much of the media ...

FDR — The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 11

by Ralph Raico February 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents It would be a mistake to think that the ...

Book Review: The Mystery of Capital

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2001

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto (New York: Random House, 2000); 243 pages; $24.95. CONSIDER THE TERM “the Third World.” Most people probably would conjure up in their minds the image of tens of millions of poverty-stricken people living in Asia, Africa, and South America possessing no means for ...

Let’s Retire the Drug War

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2001

Retired army general Barry McAfree has announced that he is now retiring from his position as America’s drug czar. If only he would take the war on drugs with him. Of all the domestic wars that the U.S. government has waged in the last several decades, the war on drugs has got to be the most immoral and destructive of ...

Food, Education, and Health Care

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2001

HAVE YOU EVER stayed up late at night worrying about whether there would be sufficient food in your community’s grocery stores the next day? Paced the floor over whether there would be the correct quantities of food for everyone? Fretted over whether rich people would buy up everything and leave ...

The Fundamental Rights of the European Union: Individual Rights or Welfare-State Privileges? Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2001

Thirty years ago, British economist William R. Lewis wrote a monograph for the Institute of Economic Affairs in London entitled Rome or Brussels...? His theme was the contrast between the original motives and purposes behind the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957 through the Treaty of Rome and what the EEC had become by the early ...

Young People Aren’t Skeptical Enough!

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2001

Nearly everyone seems to agree on one thing: young people are tragically skeptical about politics. The subject came up in the third debate between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush, both of whom bemoaned the political disillusionment of the young. Minnesota’s governor, Jesse Ventura, constantly ...