Freedom Daily Archive

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 ...

Biden’s Atrocious Assange Prosecution

by James Bovard March 1, 2023

“A confident government that is unafraid of the truth embraces a free press,” proclaimed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. But he was referring only to the Chinese government crackdown on Hong Kong journalists early last year. Unfortunately, the Biden administration continues rushing to destroy one of the most important truth tellers of our times. Julian Assange has been locked away ...

“Law and Order” and Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2023

The election year of 1968 was a tumultuous one marked by the assassinations of Sen. Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, urban race riots, college antiwar demonstrations, and a Democratic National Convention that saw the Chicago police and the National Guard have violent clashes with protestors. The 1968 election Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon (1913–1994) campaigned on a ...

The Great German and Austrian Inflations, 100 Years Ago

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2023

This year marks the 100th anniversaries of the great German and Austrian inflations that began with the coming of the First World War in 1914 and reached hyperinflationary severity following the war’s end in November 1918. While the German and Austrian inflations were particularly pronounced, all the belligerent countries in the conflict resorted to the monetary printing press to ...

Fed Up with the Fed

by Robert E. Wright March 1, 2023

The Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) began operations in 1914. Thus, many find it difficult to fathom an America without it. Yet as it conducts its own major framework review, everyone, including the Federal Reserve itself, knows that the Fed is unnecessary. Congress could abolish the institution and ...