Freedom Daily Archive

The Real Free-Market Approach to Health Care, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In his book A Critique of Interventionism , Ludwig von Mises wrote, "Authors of economics books, essays, articles, and political platforms demand interventionist measures before they are taken, but once they have been imposed no one likes them. Then everyone-usually even the authorities responsible for them-call them insufficient and ...

National Health Insurance and the Welfare State, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 After the experiences of the totalitarian states in the 20th century, logic suggests that the world would have learned the lesson that every growth in state power-every extension of government control in social and economic affairs-threatens the liberty of the people. The alternative is always and ultimately a choice between ...

Clinton’s Health-Care Plan for You: Cradle-to-Grave Slavery, Part 1

by Jarret B. Wollstein January 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 President Clinton says health care in America costs too much-that it's a national disgrace that 37 million Americans have no health insurance and that tens of millions of others have inadequate coverage. Clinton's "solution": a total government takeover of all medical care in the U.S.--1/7 of the entire U.S. economy. As you will ...

The Case against Medical Licensing

by Lawrence D. Wilson January 1, 1994

For the first 120 years of our history, America had, essentially, a free-market health-care system. There were few licensing laws or other barriers to entry into the healing arts. A variety of practitioners offered services, including herbalists, nature-care therapists, hydrotherapists, osteopaths, allopaths and homeopaths. There was a variety of healing schools and clinics. During this time, America was among ...

A Freedom Daily Classic Reprint: Medical Licensure

by Milton Friedman January 1, 1994

The medical profession is one in which practice of the profession has for a long time been restricted to people with licenses. Offhand, the question, "Ought we to let incompetent physicians practice?" seems to admit of only a negative answer. But I want to urge that second thought may give pause. In the first place, licensure is the key to ...

Book Review: Grassroots Tyranny

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 1994

Grassroots Tyranny: The Limits of Federalism by Clint Bolick (Washington, D.C.: The Cato Institute, 1993); 195 pages; $21.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper). In his book The Vanishing Rights of the States (1926), former Solicitor General of the United States, James M. Beck, pointed out that "unhappily a written form of government is not a Gibraltar that can resist the waves, ...

What President Clinton Should Have Said to the Japanese, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 1993

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 At the end of World War II, the United States was the economic leader of the world. Since our geographic territory had not suffered the ravages of war, we led the world in the production of goods and services. A devastated Europe and Japan eagerly accepted American products, not so ...

Free Trade, Managed Trade and the State, Part 5

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1993

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 In the 1870s, English classical economist Henry Faucett warned, "I think it cannot be doubted that protection must exert an inevitable tendency to foster . . . socialistic demands for State assistance. If a people are accustomed as they must be under ...

Counterfeit Charity

by Ridgway K. Foley Jr. December 1, 1993

In Frederic Bastiat's words, "Man is a sentient being." He expresses traits of concern and sympathy for his fellow sojourners on this earth. He cares for the less fortunate among his neighbors. In a world pockmarked by violence, tales of sacrifice overwhelm tales of terror, although the latter tend to be recounted more fully in history books. Americans have taken ...

The Case for Legalized Prostitution

by Paul Armentano December 1, 1993

Prostitution may be the world's oldest profession, and laws prohibiting prostitution may well be the oldest example of government regulation and government (sex) discrimination. In a free society, however, all such laws are inappropriate because they violate the basic rights and liberties of the individuals involved. Recent research indicates that over one million women in the United States earn their ...

Book Review: Lenin’s Tomb

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1993

Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick (New York: Random House, 1993); 576 pages; $25. In July 1919, during the Russian Civil War, the Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky sent an article from southern Russia to the British journal New Age. He said that he had no idea what the reader knew about what was happening in ...

Religion and Freedom

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico December 1, 1993

It never ceases to amaze me to discover the number of people who see a blatant contradiction between the notions of religion and those of liberty. Nor is this, in my estimation, an inconsequential dichotomy. The late F.A. Hayek, on the occasion of the founding of the Mont Pelerin Society, warned in his presidential lecture that the failure of ...