Freedom Daily Archive

Book Review: Central Banking in Theory and Practice

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1998

Central Banking in Theory and Practice by Alan S. Blinder (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1998); 92 pages; $20. In one of the most insightful passages in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argued: "The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capital, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary ...

Closed Minds on Open Borders, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1998

Part 1 | Part 2 The core principle of libertarianism is a simple one: the noninitiation of force by one person against another. The libertarian philosophy holds that a person should be free to do whatever he wants in life as long as his conduct is peaceful. In other words, as long as a person does not murder, rape, ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 17: Keynesian Economic Policy and Its Consequences

by Richard M. Ebeling May 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 ...

To Create Order, Remove the Planner

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1998

Which came first, the chicken of economics or the egg of economic action? Did the discipline of economics precede the object of its interest? The obvious answer is no. To say yes would be like saying that astronomy preceded the planets and stars or that before Newton, apples didn't fall from trees. Yet, there are people who speak as though ...

Needed: The Separation of Cable and State

by James Bovard May 1, 1998

There is growing political manipulation of the information that the average American is allowed to receive. Americans long ridiculed the Soviet-bloc media for presenting absurdly self-serving images of their government. Yet, in this country, thanks to government controls over cable television, most American cable subscribers are forced to bankroll multiple television stations that ...

FDR – The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 2

by Ralph Raico May 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 Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Franklin took as his wife ...

Book Review: J.B. Say

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1998

J.B. Say: An Economist in Troubled Times writings translated and selected by R.R. Palmer (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997); 164 pages; $39.95. Whatever economic freedom we enjoy in the world today is due, to a great extent, to the ideas and efforts of the classical liberals and economists of the first half of the 19th century. Inspired by the ...

Who Is an Extremist?

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 1998

Libertarians are often hit with the accusation "You are an extremist." What the accuser means is that the libertarian holds political and economic beliefs that are at the outermost fringes of American society. The term is customarily used in an insulting or derogatory sense. But isn't "extremist" a relative term? That is, doesn't being extreme depend, in large part, on ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 16: Keynes and Keynesian Economics

by Richard M. Ebeling April 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 ...

The Price of Junk Science

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 1998

The Clinton administration knows how to add insult to injury. Not only is it committed to an environmental program that will interfere with individual liberty and sap the American economy of its vitality, it also refuses to level with the American people about the costs. At the global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, the administration signed a treaty committing the ...

The Great Sugar Shaft

by James Bovard April 1, 1998

The U.S. government has devotedly jacked up American sugar prices far above world market prices since the close of the War of 1812. The sugar industry is one of America's oldest infant industries — yet it dodders with the same uncompetitiveness that it showed during the second term of James Madison. Few cases better illustrate how trade policy can ...

FDR – The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 1

by Ralph Raico April 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 As we approach the end of the 20th century, ...