Freedom Daily Archive

Book Review: The Development Frontier

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1992

The Development Frontier: Essays in Applied Economics by Peter Bauer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991); 241 pages; $24.95. Socialism has had two playgrounds on which to exercise its destructive force. One has been in the former Soviet-bloc countries, which now stand in disarray and which now are attempting to recover from ...

JFK, the CIA, and Conspiracies

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1992

The Oliver Stone movie JFK resulted in cries of indignation and outrage from many Americans. Why? Why do so many People consider it beyond the realm of reasonable political certainty that the president's assassination was planned by top-level United States governmental officials? I do not know who killed John F. Kennedy or who planned his murder. But I ...

The Predilection for Planning: National Industrial Policy, Again

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1992

It seems that no matter how many times governmental planning is implemented and fails, the temptation to try to design the economic system through political means remains irresistible. One of the reasons for this was explained in the 1880s by the English economist Walter Bagehot, who warned, "All Governments like to interfere; it elevates their position to make out ...

The CIA

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1992

In a 1954 speech to the Conservative Society of Yale Law School, Felix Morley, a founder of the conservative weekly newspaper Human Events, indicted United States foreign policy as "imperial." The U.S. policy, he said, "demands that concentration and centralization of power which has characterized every empire since the days of Nebuchadnezzar." The "enormous ...

Book Review: Two Essays by Ludwig Von Mises

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1992

Two Essays by Ludwig Von Mises: Liberty and Property and Middle-of-the-Road Leads to Socialism (Auburn: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1991); 74 pages; $5.00. Ludwig von Mises's position as the 20th century's preeminent advocate of the market economy is based upon his seminal works on economic theory and policy. The Theory of Money and Credit (1912) and Monetary Stabilization ...

The Constitution and the Rule of Law

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1992

In 1944, Friedrich A. Hayek wrote one of the most thought-provoking books of our time — The Road to Serfdom. Hayek warned that Great Britain and the United States were abandoning their heritage of liberty and adopting the economic principles of the Nazis, fascists, and socialists. It was not a ...

Up from Serfdom: Friedrich A. Hayek and the Defense of Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1992

Friedrich August von Hayek was one of the greatest economists and political philosophers of the 20th century. After Ludwig von Mises, Professor Hayek was the leading figure of the Austrian School of Economics during the last six decades. He also was one of the most profound defenders of liberty during the last two hundred years. With his death on ...

The Rise, Fall, and Renaissance of Classical Liberalism, Part 1

by Ralph Raico August 1, 1992

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Classical liberalism — or simply liberalism, as it was called until around the turn of the century — is the signature political philosophy of Western civilization. Hints and suggestions of the liberal idea can be found in other great cultures. But it was the distinctive society produced in Europe — ...

Book Review: The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Volume 4

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1992

The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Volume 4: The Fortunes of Liberalism, Essays on Austrian Economics and the Ideal of Freedom (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1992); 279 pages; $29.95. Classical liberalism has been under attack for practically all of the 20th century. After a hundred years of liberalism's triumphs ...

Dismantling America’s Military Empire

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 1992

As President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us thirty years ago, the military-industrial complex is a menace and a threat to the freedom and well-being of the American people. The time has come to dismantle America's military empire. Since the end of World War II, the proponents of conscription, taxation, military spending, and war repeatedly told us, ...

The Interventionist State Should Not Be the Nation’s Business

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1992

In 1966, a well-known business-affairs columnist of the time named Donald I. Rogers wrote a short book entitled The End of Free Enterprise. His theme was that the American business community had lost its way intellectually and ideologically. "What the business world needs is a decision about the principles it stands for," Mr. Rogers argued. "It needs a credo, ...

The IMF Doesn’t Deserve a Capital Boost

by Doug Bandow July 1, 1992

For more than four decades, the U.S. has been the largest contributor to not only the IMF but also to all of the other multilateral-aid institutions, such as the World Bank. Indeed, Washington even provides the largest check to the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and ...