Regulation Policy & Welfare

Historical Preservation and the Market

by Scott McPherson June 18, 2003

There’s a controversy brewing over the Old North Church in Boston, from the window of which patriot Paul Revere received the signal that British troops were headed for Concord and spread the word through the Massachusetts countryside. It seems that the old church needs some work, and the U.S. government ...

Insider-Trading Prohibitions Should Go out of Style

by Don Boudreaux June 6, 2003

One of the most essential distinctions made in Anglo-American law is between acts that are malum in se and acts that are malum prohibitum. According to the law dictionary at www.law.com, an act that is malum in se is “wrong in itself, in its very nature being ...

Social Fantasy and Libertarian Reality

by Scott McPherson April 25, 2003

The idea you can bring unskilled people into the country and not impose huge costs on taxpayers is a fallacy. Its a kind of libertarian fantasy. So said Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), on the occasion of his organizations releasing a report on the rise in welfare use by immigrants. According to ...

War as a Media Subsidy

by Scott McPherson March 31, 2003

One can’t help but be amused by the way television news programs become practically weak at the knees when war looms. The prospect of reporting on a major armed conflict is met with almost universal applause by our friends in the entertainment, oops, the news industry — and it’s ...

Operation Iraqi Welfare

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 28, 2003

President Bush’s most recent raison du jour, I mean reason of the day (sorry!), for invading Iraq is to “liberate” the Iraqi people. That’s why the Pentagon ultimately decided to name the invasion “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” The terminology perfectly encapsulates how far we have strayed from the true ...

Freedom Is the Answer for Us, Too

by Scott McPherson March 19, 2003

“ systems are the ones that are producing the most for their people and dictatorships and despotism don’t,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, commenting on the economic plight of North Korea under communist rule. Echoing this sentiment two days later, Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the left-wing ...

The Iraqi Expulsion of Fox News

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 19, 2003

The Iraqi government is throwing Fox News out of Iraq, apparently in retaliation for the U.S. government’s expulsion of a correspondent for the Iraqi News Agency (INA) for engaging in actions “harmful to U.S. interests.” Since the INA is owned and operated by the Iraqi government, it ...

Flying the Regulated Skies

by Scott McPherson January 27, 2003

If ever there was cause to believe that the government is not competent to dictate airport and airline security, the recent arrest of a pilot for trying to carry a pistol onto his flight should confirm that suspicion. It also shows again why security ought to be left to individual ...

Market Competition Lives

by Sheldon Richman January 15, 2003

With the resignation of Steve Case as chairman of AOL Time Warner, we have yet another demonstration of the greatness of the marketplace and a striking contrast with its nemesis, government. Think back to the day three years ago when the mega-merger between AOL and Time Warner was announced. ...

Selling the State, to Help the State

by Scott McPherson January 6, 2003

Marylands governor-elect Bob Ehrlich has a great idea: sell off state-owned properties. The bad news is, he wants to use the money to plug a $1.8 billion budget shortfall rather than give it back to taxpayers and reduce the size of state government. Maryland is among the most socialistic states in the Union. Like New York and California, it boasts ...

In Pursuit of Sustainable Development: Political Planning versus the Free Market

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2003

From August 26 to September 4, 2002, the United Nations sponsored a World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. More than 100 heads of state and 60,000 delegates worked on an agenda for improving the health and well-being of tens of millions of people living in poverty around the ...

Hawks and the Free Market

by Bart Frazier January 1, 2003

Rosalie Barrow Edge should be considered a hero to libertarians and conservationists alike. In 1933, she founded Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pennsylvania. At a time in our country's history when the economy was a shambles and socialism was hip, Edge managed to establish the first refuge for hawks in the world without the aid of government. In the 1920s ...