Daily Articles

TGIF: Free-Market Socialism

by Sheldon Richman November 14, 2014

Libertarians are individualists. But since individualist has many senses, that statement isn’t terribly informative. Does it mean that libertarians are social nonconformists on principle? Not at all. Some few libertarians may aspire to be, but most would see that as undesirable because it would obstruct their most important objectives. Lots of libertarian men have no problem wearing a jacket and ...

Gordon Tullock: Economist Who Explained Why Government Corruptly Grows

by Richard M. Ebeling November 13, 2014

Why is it that government grows in size and scope, and is so difficult to stop or reverse? Political economist, Gordon Tullock, who passed away on November 3, 2014 at the age of 92, was a path-breaker is explaining how and why big government keeps getting bigger. Gordon Tullock was one of the founders of what has become known as ...

Court Journalists and War Propaganda

by Wendy McElroy November 12, 2014

“Court historians” are part of the partnership between intellectuals and the state. They are the scholars whose version of history champions the agenda and actions of a ruler from whom they usually receive status and wealth. The essence of court history was captured by a statement arising from the late nineteenth-century militaristic academics at the University of Berlin, who ...

Stop Those Who Would Stop Uber

by Sheldon Richman November 11, 2014

The nerve of some people! Imagine coming to a city and doing business without first asking permission from local officials! That’s what Uber has done in cities all over the United States and Europe, and it’s created quite a storm among politicians and licensed taxi drivers, who have held up traffic in, among other places, Boston, London, and Paris just ...

The Libertarian Angle: Republican Electoral Victory

by Future of Freedom Foundation November 10, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the Republican landslide. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.  

TGIF: The Political Sterility of Jon Stewart

by Sheldon Richman November 7, 2014

Political satire has a long and honorable history: Aristophanes, William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift; W.S. Gilbert; Mark Twain; George Orwell; Lenny Bruce; Dick Gregory; Tom Lehrer,  David Frost, and That Was the Week That Was; George Carlin; Spitting Image, Yes, Minister; the Smothers Brothers; the early Saturday Night Live, Dave Barry, The Onion, South Park, Family Guy, and so many more. Unfortunately, while it ...

Election 2014: The Good News and Bad

by Sheldon Richman November 6, 2014

The 2014 midterm election delivered both good news and bad. The good news is that the losers lost. The bad news is that the winners won. Journalist Mike Barnicle says he’s never seen an election in which the people feel so distant from the government. I wish his diagnosis were right, but I suspect it is not. True, voter turnout likely ...

A Small Victory for Freedom

by Laurence M. Vance November 6, 2014

One of the most ridiculous things about the government’s war on drugs is that it classifies marijuana in the same category as dangerous drugs such as heroin, thus making marijuana worse than morphine, cocaine, methamphetamine, and phenobarbital. Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). As a Schedule I drug, marijuana ...

The Libertarian Angle: IRS Thievery

by Future of Freedom Foundation November 3, 2014

  FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: how the IRS steals from the citizenry. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Benjamin Constant: A Principled Voice of Liberty Worth Recalling

by Richard M. Ebeling November 3, 2014

October 25th marked the 247th birthday of one of the greatest voices of liberty, the French political philosopher of freedom, Benjamin Constant. He may not be a household name to friends of freedom today, but he should be. He wrote one of the most principled and consistent defenses of individual liberty and freedom of enterprise to appear in the ...

The U.S. Executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 To understand the full context of the U.S. executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi Jr. (see part 1), it is necessary to first do a broad survey of American history. We begin with the Constitution, the document that brought the ...

Jane Cobden: Carrying On Her Father’s Good Work

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2014

Among libertarians and classical liberals, the name Richard Cobden (1804–1865) evokes admiration and applause. His activities — and successes — on behalf of freedom, free markets, and government retrenchment are legendary. Most famously, he co-founded — with John Bright — the Anti–Corn Law League, which successfully campaigned for repeal of the import tariffs on grain. Those trade restrictions had ...