Freedom Daily Archive

The Conservative Commitment to Educational Socialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1998

It would be difficult to find a better model of socialistic central planning than public (government) schooling. Public schooling entails a central board of elected or appointed government planners, either at a national, state, or local level. Attendance is mandated by compulsory-attendance laws. Government-approved schoolteachers, using government-approved textbooks, ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 21: The Keynesian Revolution and the Early Critics of Keynes

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1998

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Eliminate, Don’t Reform, the IRS

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1998

Yet again, a taxpayer "bill of rights" has been enacted into law. And so, after all the recent revelations of Internal Revenue Service abuse of peaceful citizens, we can all now be confident that the tax collector will respect the rights and dignity of every American. Right. And pigs have started ...

The Legalization of Prostitution

by James Bovard September 1, 1998

Prostitution has long been illegal in the vast majority of the United States. Unfortunately, laws against prostitution often bring out the worst among the nation's law-enforcement agencies — and pose a growing threat to public health. As fear of the spread of AIDS rises, the legalization of prostitution offers ...

In Praise of Working People

by Wendy McElroy September 1, 1998

A prominent difference between the 19th-century libertarian movement and the contemporary one lies in their attitudes toward working people. These are people who are not primarily interested in reading economic or political theory but who focus their energies instead on making a decent living or raising a healthy family. These are intelligent people who understand the impact of laws ...

Book Review: Free-Market Feminism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1998

Free-Market Feminism by David Conway (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1998); 96 pages; £7.00. The Soviet Union may be gone, but the Marxian mindset still dominates the intellectual climate of the world. Many of the fashionable fads of our time are merely variations on Marx's conception of class conflict. The residues of socialism also still dominate the general understanding ...

Protectionism: Rearing Its Ugly Head Again

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1998

One of the principal tenets of libertarianism is the right of people to freely trade their goods and services with others. The reasoning is based on moral principles underlying private property and individual freedom. Each of us has the right to sustain his life by utilizing the talents and abilities with which we have been endowed by the Creator. ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 20: Keynesian Economics and the Hubris of the Social Engineer

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1998

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Forget the Trade Deficit!

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 1998

Memo to newspaper editors: Stop publishing stories about the trade deficit. You are needlessly worrying people about something that means absolutely nothing. Forget the trade deficit. Except in the most trivial sense, there's no such thing. Adam Smith, that Scotsman who knew a fair bit about political ...

Tariffs as Enemies of Freedom

by James Bovard August 1, 1998

Some prominent protectionists, such as Pat Buchanan, are portraying high tariffs as an engine of national liberation — as a way to save Americans from foreign threats. However, tariffs always have been and always will be an enemy to individual freedom. The U.S. tariff code is the accumulated junk heap ...

FDR – The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 4

by Ralph Raico August 1, 1998

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 When the United States entered the First World War, ...

Restriction and Free Trade

by Fredric Bastiat August 1, 1998

Two opposite doctrines oppose each other: The one, which is dominant in legislation and opinions, sees the way of progress in the surplus of sales over purchases, of exports over imports — in a word, what is called balance of trade. The other, which we try to propagate, is the exact ...