Daily Articles

The False Promises of Two Percent Price Inflation

by Richard M. Ebeling December 16, 2014

A specter is haunting the world, the specter of two percent inflationism. Whether pronounced by the U.S. Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank, or from the Bank of Japan, many monetary central planners have declared their determination to impose a certain minimum of rising prices on their societies and economies. One of the ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Torture Scandal (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation December 15, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the recent release of the Senate Torture Report. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

TGIF: “And the Pursuit of Happiness”: Nathaniel Branden, RIP

by Sheldon Richman December 12, 2014

Libertarians and others have wondered why Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence concludes its explicitly incomplete list of unalienable rights with the pursuit of happiness rather than property. The website Monticello.org states, Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson himself never explained his use of the phrase “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. However, he was almost certainly influenced by George ...

The Purism vs. Gradualism Libertarian Debate Is Over

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 12, 2014

When I founded The Future of Freedom Foundation twenty-five years ago, the debate that was raging within the libertarian movement was between the purists and the gradualists. The debate centered on whether libertarians should stand for the immediate repeal of socialist and interventionist programs or whether they should endorse reform measures that would supposedly get us to the free ...

The Case for Monetary Freedom and Free Banking

by Richard M. Ebeling December 11, 2014

There has been no greater threat to life, liberty, and property throughout the ages than government. Even the most violent and brutal private individuals have been able to inflict only a mere fraction of the harm and destruction that have been caused by the use of power by political authorities. The pursuit of legal plunder, to use Frédéric Bastiat’s well-chosen ...

I Love Loosies and the People Who Sell Them

by Sheldon Richman December 10, 2014

The cops who ganged up on Eric Garner, got him into a chokehold, and mashed his face into the sidewalk didn’t intend to kill him. They intended only to show him who’s boss on the streets of Staten Island — and show him in a way he would never forget. As a Facebook friend of mine put it, instead they ...

Protectionism Is Central Planning

by Laurence M. Vance December 9, 2014

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum last month in China, Barack Obama championed the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which, if enacted, would be the world’s largest trade agreement, accounting for more than 40 percent of world GDP. “What we are seeing,” Obama told those in attendance at the APEC summit’s opening session, “is momentum building ...

No Compromise Is the ONLY Way to Achieve Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 8, 2014

There is one way — and only one way — to achieve the free society: by strictly hewing to libertarian principles. While compromising libertarian principles might seem to be a more palatable and more practical way to achieve freedom, nothing could be further from the truth. In response to our end-of-year letter seeking people’s financial support for The Future of Freedom ...

The Libertarian Angle: Foreign Policy Blowback and Police Tyranny

by Future of Freedom Foundation December 8, 2014

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

The ONLY Way to Achieve Freedom (video)

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 5, 2014

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TGIF: Tackling Straw Men Is Easier than Critiquing Libertarianism

by Sheldon Richman December 5, 2014

Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but I think it behooves a critic to understand what he’s criticizing. I realize that tackling straw men is much easier than dealing with challenging arguments, but that’s no excuse for the shoddy work we find in John Edward Terrell’s New York Times post, “Evolution and the American Myth of the Individual.” In his ...

The Ferguson Distraction

by Sheldon Richman December 4, 2014

Ironically, the shooting death of unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown by white Ferguson, MO, police officer Darren Wilson is a distraction from the racist police brutality that ravages America. Whether or not Wilson shot Brown unjustifiably, and whether or not Brown provoked the shooting by grabbing for Wilson’s gun, the police — and the government officials who employ and arm ...