Freedom Daily Archive

The Consistency of Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance September 1, 2015

The essence of libertarianism is that a person should be free to live his life in any manner he chooses as long as his activities are peaceful, his interactions are consensual, and his associations are voluntary. Conservative godfather Russell Kirk (1918–1994) was right, at least on this point, when he said that a man who calls himself a libertarian because ...

Book Review: An Enjoyable Guide to Economics

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2015

Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You about Economics by John Tamny (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2015) 279 pages. It  is often pointed out that man’s improved circumstances on this Earth over the centuries has been the result of the accumulated knowledge that each generation takes from the preceding ones, to ...

Your Data or Your Life

by Matthew Harwood September 1, 2015

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015), 400 pages. Your data or your life. Distilled to its essence, this is the argument of surveillance hawks who want U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to retain their intrusive, unlawful, and unconstitutional surveillance ...

The Vietnam War and the Permanent War State

by Gareth Porter September 1, 2015

American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity by Christian G. Appy (Viking Press, 2015), 416 pages. In his new book, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity, Christian G. Appy deals with some big historical and conceptual problems of great interest to Americans and non-Americans who seek an end to the permanent war state ...

Why We Don’t Compromise, Part 4

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 The crown jewel of the U.S. welfare state is Social Security. This federal program was adopted during the 1930s as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which consisted of an array of government programs that revolutionized America’s economic ...

Obama’s “Cynicism” Racketeering

by James Bovard August 1, 2015

Barack Obama captured the presidency in part because of his appeals to “hope and change.” But after more than six years in power, he is now spending far more time denouncing cynicism. As usual, the worst example of cynicism is citizens who fail to trust the government and the Supreme Leader. A presidency built on restoring faith in the ...

Does Empire Provide Global Public Goods?

by Joseph R. Stromberg August 1, 2015

Many of us have brushed up against public-goods theory once or twice, in an economics class or in various policy arguments. In the 1970s the concept took off in international-relations studies and we hear much these days about global public goods. This broadening of public-goods theory serves to license a broad array of state activities abroad, modeled on those ...

The Crisis of the Welfare State

by Clarence Carson August 1, 2015

The welfare state is more like a vast overlay of interventions on the market and economy than the displacement of it. They burden the economy, distort it, disrupt it, but they do not replace it. The interventions produce episodic disorders as well as crises. Some of these have been called by such varied names as recessions, inflation, economic stagnation, ...

Business Is No Business of the State

by George Leef August 1, 2015

Uncle Sam Can’t Count: A History of Failed Government Investments from Beaver Pelts to Green Energy by Burton W. Folsom Jr. and Anita Folsom (Broadside Books, 2014), 239 pages. The day after the 2010 mid-term elections, the federal government quietly announced the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a “green energy” company that had been touted by Barack Obama as a ...

The War That Justified Other Wars

by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2015

The Good War That Wasn’t — And Why It Matters: World War II’s Moral Legacy by Ted Grimsrud (Cascade Books, 2014), 286 pages. Even among some libertarians, World War II is viewed as the great exception. Although it was the most destructive thing to life, liberty, and property that the world has ever seen, World War II is ...

Why We Don’t Compromise, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 Suppose 100 percent of libertarians called for a reform, rather than a dismantling, of the welfare-warfare state way of life under which Americans today live. What would be the chances of achieving the free ...

The Mandatory Voting Panacea

by James Bovard July 1, 2015

Barack Obama suggested on March 18, 2015, that mandatory voting could cure some of the ills of American democracy. He said that compelling everyone to vote would “encourage more participation” — perhaps the same way that the specter of prison sentences encourages more people to pay taxes. While there are many good reasons to oppose mandatory voting, compulsory balloting ...