Freedom Daily Archive

Celebrating Adam Smith on His 300th Birthday

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2023

Three hundred years ago, on June 5, 1723, one of the most important and influential thinkers in modern history, Adam Smith, was born in the small Scottish village of Kirkcaldy. There are few individuals who it can be said have left as lasting and as positive a legacy on humankind as Adam Smith. He authored only two books, The Theory ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 2

by George Leef June 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) Caplan follows up on that observation with a devastating point about the calculating political mindset. Suppose that a politician had to choose between a populace of nothing but independent, self-supporting individuals or one with a large percentage of envious layabouts ...

Ukraine and the Cold War

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 13, 2023

On October 25, 1970, a team of well-armed Chilean thugs attacked an automobile in which Chilean General Rene Schneider was traveling in downtown Santiago. Their aim was to kidnap and kill Schneider. Given that he was the overall commander of the Chilean armed forces, Schneider pulled out his pistol and fought back, but he was no match ...

Snowden and the Fight for American Privacy

by James Bovard May 1, 2023

Edward Snowden did heroic service in awakening Americans to Washington ravishing their privacy. Snowden’s “reward” is to be banished in Russia without a snowball’s chance in hell of a fair trial if he returns to America. But as he courageously declared, “I would rather be without a state than without a voice.” He explained why he leaked ...

How Not to Abolish the Income Tax

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2023

Throughout this country’s history, Americans have always paid taxes of various kinds. But no matter what kind, all taxation is theft. Everyone but a criminal obtains his income voluntarily. He either sells some good or service or he receives some kind of  stipend or gift But as explained by the Austrian economist Murray Rothbard (1926–1995): Only the State ...

Only a Renewed Belief in Liberty Can End America’s Fiscal Follies

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2023

The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) February 2023 report, Budget and Economic Outlook, 2023-2033, documents just how serious the fiscal dilemma is facing the United States. In a nutshell, the federal government’s debt is on a dangerous trajectory, future annual budget deficits are huge as far as the eye can see, and the “entitlement programs” — Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 1

by George Leef May 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) If you are a libertarian, or just someone with a streak of skepticism about government, you will enjoy and profit from reading How Evil are Politicians? The author, Bryan Caplan, is a professor of economics at George Mason ...

The Origins of U.S. Monetary Debauchery

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2023

One of the unsung heroes in American history was a prominent New York City lawyer named Frederick Barber Campbell. Campbell graduated from Harvard Law School in 1894 and was a partner in the law firm of Campbell and Whipp. Its offices were located at 20 Exchange Place, which was in the middle of the Wall Street area of the ...

World Economic Forum Wants to Make You a Serf

by James Bovard April 1, 2023

The January meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, should have set off alarms among freedom lovers around the globe. The annual confab of billionaires, political weasels, and deranged activists laid out plans to further repress humanity. But at least the gathering provided plenty of comic relief for people who enjoy elite buffoonery. Self-worship is obligatory in ...

America’s Comeback

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2023

When most Americans hear the word comeback, they immediately think of sports. Whether it is football, basketball, golf, baseball, boxing, or hockey — Americans love a comeback. Like in 2019, when Tiger Woods won the Masters — his first Majors win in 11 years. Like in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs finished the ...

Philip Wicksteed on the Common Sense of Choice and the Market Process

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2023

The British economist Philip H. Wicksteed began his most important work, The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910), with a motto taken from the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): “We all live it, but few of us know what we are living.” Contrary to the classical economists, who had argued that the market value of things was ...

The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 The United States once had the finest health-care system in history. When I was growing up in the 1950s — before Medicare and Medicaid came into existence — medical costs were low and stable. Hardly anyone had major-medical insurance. That’s because they didn’t need it. Going to the doctor was like going to the ...