Daily Articles

Libertarians Are Pro-Market, Not Pro-Business

by David S. D'Amato June 19, 2015

There is a popular narrative that treats pro-market and pro-business essentially as synonyms, thus seeing the most libertarian-leaning candidates as those most favored by major corporate interests. The idea is that big business both desires and benefits from an environment of total laissez faire, of cutthroat competition free from the control of meddlesome regulators. The problem is that from a ...

Prisons Without Walls: We’re All Inmates in the American Police State

by John W. Whitehead June 18, 2015

“It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free—to be under no physical constraint and yet be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private interest within the nation wants him to think, feel and act. . . . To ...

American Progressives are Bismarck’s Grandchildren

by Richard M. Ebeling June 17, 2015

American “progressives” portray themselves as “forward-looking,” advocates of a higher and better freedom than the traditional American conception of liberty as freedom from government coercion and control. In fact, they are the intellectual great-grandchildren of the “reactionary” nineteenth century Imperial German “Iron Chancellor,” Otto von Bismarck. A recent example of the progressive’s retrogressive notion of the meaning of freedom was ...

The Libertarian Angle – Ron Paul and the Battle for Liberty

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 16, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week, Jacob and special co-host Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, discuss the importance of a non-interventionist foreign policy and the dismantling of the welfare state. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the ...

The State’s Exploitation of the Common Man

by Bart Frazier June 15, 2015

One of the oldest complaints coming from the Left is that the business world exploits the common man. The Democrat Party uses it as a veritable rallying cry, with its candidates promising to protect the helpless lower classes from the predations of corporations and international conglomerates. As they say, the game is rigged. They are correct, but not in ...

The Libertarian Angle – Freedom and Privacy vs. the NSA

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 9, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week, the continuing scandal at the NSA. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

The Tyranny of Trigger Words and College Safe Spaces

by Richard M. Ebeling June 8, 2015

The media has been full of stories recently about the new sensitivity on college and university campuses concerning the avoidance in courses or assignments of the use of “trigger words” or phrases that may have a “hurtful” affect on students when thoughtlessly used in the teaching environment. Student and other groups on campuses have insisted that professors provide advanced warning ...

Are There Rules for Trade?

by Laurence M. Vance June 4, 2015

Barack Obama has been lobbying Congress for Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as “fast-track authority,” so the executive branch can work in secret on trade deals before submitting them to Congress for a quick up-or-down vote with limited time for debate, no provision for amendments, and no possibility of a Senate filibuster. The president has made passage of the ...

The Libertarian Angle with Pete Boettke – Luminaries in Austrian Economics

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 2, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week, Jacob and guest co-host Peter Boettke talks about the history of Austrian economics. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast here.

Keynesian Medicines are Not a Cure for China’s Ills

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2015

Keynesians never seem to learn. Every time an economy slows down or reverses gears and “goes negative,” in terms of growth and employment, their only answer is a call for “aggregate demand” stimulus and more government spending manipulation. An example of this is a recent article by Washington Post columnist, Robert Samuelson raising the question, “China’s Coming Crash?” (May 24, ...

Why We Don’t Compromise, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2  | Part 3 | Part 4 |  Part 5 | Part 6 In fighting for the free society, people necessarily must determine what it means to be free. Freedom obviously has many different dimensions. Religious liberty entails the freedom to worship God or not, without state compulsion one way ...

The Supreme Court’s Dreadful Record on Freedom

by James Bovard June 1, 2015

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the legality of the Affordable Care Act this past March. Several justices questioned whether a ruling against Obamacare would be “unconstitutionally coercive” to state governments that did not create health-care exchanges. The Supreme Court is sometimes hypersensitive about the authority of state governments when federalism issues are raised. But at the same ...