Freedom Daily Archive

The Future of Freedom-Retrospect and Prospects, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In spite of the demise of totalitarian collectivism, the world is still enveloped by the ideology of socialism. When Ludwig von Mises began his treatise Socialism in 1922 with the observation: "Socialism is the watchword of the day. The socialist ...

The New, New Left

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico December 1, 1994

The anticapitalist Left has devised a new intellectual attack on the market economy. The straw in the wind was a blistering article in The New York Times that appeared on May 8, 1994. The article, written by Peter Passell, was headlined "Life's Hard? Blame the Market." Like other attacks on market fundamentals, it complains about unequal income distribution. ...

A Catholic Refuses Government Funds

by Margaret Mathers December 1, 1994

From 1984 to 1993, I was director of Catholic Charities for San Juan County, New Mexico. A situation existed which has caused me to do some soul-searching and to reach a conclusion that was not popular. I was criticized — with varying degrees of contempt — for my refusal to accept government funding (FEMA funds, for example) for the agency ...

Taxation

by Jim Russell December 1, 1994

Like many who consider themselves libertarians, I have concluded that taxation, in any form for any purpose, is theft. I agree with the nineteenth-century economist Frederic Bastiat, who called it legal plunder. It ought to be abolished. When I state my position on this matter to others not versed in libertarianism, they invariably jump to the conclusion that I am ...

Christian Charity versus Government Welfare

by Thomas L. Johnson December 1, 1994

The idea that government-sponsored welfare programs to assist the needy are compatible with, and justified by, Christian philosophy is probably the most widespread erroneous belief that permeates American society, and is hastening the destruction of freedom in the United States. This tragic flaw in the thinking of both well-educated and uneducated Christians has already brought misery to millions, and ...

Book Review: Red in Tooth and Claw

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1994

Red in Tooth and Claw: Twenty-Six Years in Communist Chinese Prisons by Pu Ning (New York: Grove Press, 1994) 228 pages; $21. The essential details of the Soviet house of horror are now fairly well known. The story of the Soviet Gulag has been told not only in the great work by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago , but in ...

The Case for Unilateral Free Trade and Open Immigration

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 1994

The American people are extremely fortunate. Two hundred years ago, their Founding Fathers used the Constitution to prohibit American government officials from ever enacting trade and immigration restrictions between the respective states of the Union. This meant that the citizens of any state could buy and sell goods and services with the citizens of any other state, without tariffs ...

The Future of Freedom-Retrospect and Prospects, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 With the approaching end of 1994, The Future of Freedom Foundation is celebrating its fifth anniversary. For a half-decade, Jacob Hornberger and I, and the other authors who have contributed essays for Freedom Daily, have attempted to make the ethical and economic case for individual liberty and the ...

Separating Money and the State, Part 2: Revoking Government’s Money Monopoly

by Douglas E. French November 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 Every city in America has dozens of fast-food restaurants vying for our business. Which are successful? The ones that deliver on their promise to provide consistently good, quality food. Restaurants that do not, go out of business. If government controlled the fast-food business the same way ...

Private Ownership and the Environment

by Lawrence W. Reed November 1, 1994

When it comes to "environmentalism," it is presumed by many that government is the only game in town. At least that is the message of radical environmentalists, who see private enterprise as the villain and the public sector as the white knight. That perspective is being challenged by a growing number of scientists and public scholars advancing what is known ...

Individualism and the Free Society, Part 1

by Nathaniel Branden November 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 A political system is the expression of a code of ethics. Just as some form of statism or collectivism is the expression of the ethics of altruism, so individualism — as represented by laissez-faire capitalism — is the expression of the ethics of rational self-interest. In this chapter I propose to show why this is ...

Book Review: Lost Rights

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1994

Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberties by James Bovard (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994); 408 pages; $24.95. Several years ago, Chicago School economist George Stigler argued: Even with the vast expansion of public controls over earning and spending in the United States since the Civil War, there has been an enormous expansion in the average individual's liberty. He has ...