Freedom Daily Archive

Lionel Robbins on the Logic of Choice and a Liberal International Order

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2023

It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that British economist Lionel Robbins (1898–1984) was one of the most influential economists of the last hundred years without most economists, nowadays, being aware of it. This is all because of a relatively short book that he published over 90 years ago, An Essay on the Nature and ...

The Historical Foundation of Civil Liberties, Part 3

by Tom G. Palmer January 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is from a transcript of the opening presentation of FFF’s September 21, 2021, conference “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” Let’s examine the contemporary use of the term civil liberties. The use of the term in the way that we’re now accustomed to dates to the repressive measures of World ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The coin of the realm in any national-security state is fear. In order to induce people to surrender their rights and freedoms, officials have to inculcate deep fear within them. Thus, national-security officials are constantly coming up with official foreign enemies, opponents, rivals, and adversaries, as well as crises, to ...

Biden’s Bloated IRS Will Skewer Taxpayers

by James Bovard December 1, 2022

The Internal Revenue Service is perhaps the ultimate sacred cow in Washington. It is the “goose that lays the golden eggs” for the city’s power and prestige, delivering trillions of dollars to politicians to work miracles (or at least get reelected). When criticism erupted over the 87,000 new revenooers to be hired thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, Washington’s ...

The Free Market Can and Should Be Absolute

by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2022

The 1932 Democratic Party platform advocated “the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.” But since the advent of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal — a raw deal for Americans that raised taxes; forced most manufacturing industries into cartels with codes that regulated prices; paid ...

Monetary Freedom Instead of Central Banking

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2022

The United States and most of the rest of the world are, once again, in the midst of an inflationary crisis. Prices in general are rising at annualized rates not experienced by, especially, the industrialized countries of North America and Europe for well over 40 years. More than 50 percent of the U.S. population is under 40 years of ...

The Historical Foundation of Civil Liberties, Part 2

by Tom G. Palmer December 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is from a transcript of the opening presentation of FFF’s September 21, 2021, conference “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” In the later classical period, a new system, which came to be known as democracy, emerged, notably in Athens. It was based on the liberty of the citizens and was ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The biggest mistake America has ever made since the inception of our country was the conversion of the federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state. It is the reason that all of us have been born and raised under what can only be called a national-security police ...

Biden the Bogus Benevolent Dictator

by James Bovard November 1, 2022

On July 4, President Biden declared, “Liberty is under assault ... rights we assumed were protected are no longer.” Biden, however, was referring solely to a few Supreme Court decisions he deplored, not to the federal supremacy he championed for almost 50 years in the Senate and the White House. Though Biden took office preaching the need for “unity,” he ...

When Will Congress Admit Its Mistakes?

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2022

“I was wrong,” says a group of New York Times opinion writers. “Eight Times Opinion columnists revisit their incorrect predictions and bad advice — and reflect on why they changed their minds” is the statement that appears at the end of each of the articles. “I was wrong about inflation,” writes Paul Krugman. He “made a very bad call” when ...

A Swiss Oasis of Liberal Sanity in a Totalitarian Europe

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 2022

On September 16, 1939, barely more than two weeks after the beginning of the Second World War in Europe with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, the “Austrian”-oriented British economist Lionel Robbins finished the preface to his short book, The Economic Causes of War. The five chapters making up the 125-page volume had originally been delivered as ...

The Historical Foundation of Civil Liberties, Part 1

by Tom G. Palmer November 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is from a transcript of the opening presentation of FFF’s September 21, 2021, conference “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” When we think about civil liberties, it’s very common in contemporary discourse to distinguish civil liberties from economic liberties, even political liberties. And occasionally, you’ll hear the term civil liberties ...