Daily Articles

The Calling: Libertarians, Victim Blaming, and Structural Racism

by Steven Horwitz August 28, 2014

The events in Ferguson, Missouri have opened up yet another national conversation on race. This time, however, something is different. The images of a mostly white police department dressed in military outfits using military weaponry and vehicles while attempting to control a largely black crowd protesting the killing of an unarmed black man by a white police officer has ...

Fed Follies: Central Bank Continues to Force Economy in Wrong Direction

by Richard M. Ebeling August 26, 2014

For more than a decade, now, Federal Reserve policy has been guided by the fear of one economic bogyman: the presumed danger of “price deflation.” The fear is unfounded and the inflationary “solution” only leads to disaster. During Alan Greenspan’s and Ben Bernanke’s watches at the helm of America’s central bank and now under Janet Yellen, the claim has been ...

Truth

by Scott McPherson August 26, 2014

  He learns with delight, upon simple exertions Of small minds contrite, facing clever assertions – Resentfully so, for want of good work That likewise inspires – saying "'Tis job for our kirk!" "Traitor or knave, your mind is askew, With thoughts of such an irreverent hue!" Unworthy of they, this unenlightened who tries Yet threatened by his ideas – they mobilize! "Look, behold – he of the ...

The Libertarian Angle: Iraq

by Future of Freedom Foundation August 25, 2014

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

Tobacco and a Free Society

by Laurence M. Vance August 25, 2014

Yet another successful lawsuit against a tobacco company, one that resulted in a jury’s awarding the widow of a tobacco smoker more than $23 billion because of her husband’s premature death, means that it is apropos to revisit the subject of tobacco and a free society. A jury last month in Escambia County (Pensacola), Florida, after a four-week trial and ...

TGIF: “The Police Force Is Watching the People”

by Sheldon Richman August 22, 2014

Political philosophy — the libertarian philosophy included — can take you only so far. The libertarian philosophy provides grounds for condemning aggression, that is, the initiation of force, and along with some supplemental considerations, it identifies in the abstract what constitutes aggression, victimhood, and self-defense. But the philosophy can’t identify the aggressor and victim in particular cases; relevant empirical ...

Mission Creep in Iraq

by Sheldon Richman August 21, 2014

There are several reasons not to intervene militarily in another country’s conflict, even modestly. One is the potential for mission creep. We already could detect the signs of mission creep in Iraq. Now, with the stepped-up U.S. airstrikes after the Islamic State's horrific execution of American reporter Jim Foley, the signs are clearer than ever. On August 7, Barack Obama sa

Federal Reserve Policies Cause Booms and Busts

by Richard M. Ebeling August 20, 2014

Since the economic crisis of 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve – America’s central bank – has expanded the money supply in the banking system by over $4 trillion, and has manipulated key interest rates to keep them so artificially low that when adjusted for price inflation, several of them have been actually negative. We should not be surprised if this ...

The Libertarian Angle: Ferguson, Missouri, and the Militarization of the Cops

by Future of Freedom Foundation August 18, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: Ferguson and the militarization of local police forces. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

TGIF: Liberty in America during the Great War

by Sheldon Richman August 15, 2014

There’s always plenty for libertarians to complain about in our troubled world, but in many respects, things could be much worse. I’m thinking particularly of how the U.S. government punished dissent before, during, and even after America’s participation in World War I. Although it will be a few years before we observe the centenary of Woodrow Wilson’s idiotic decision ...

Out of Iraq, Etc.!

by Sheldon Richman August 13, 2014

Nearly a century ago, after four bloody years of World War I, British colonialists created the state of Iraq, complete with their hand-picked monarch. Britain and France were authorized — or, more precisely, authorized themselves — to create states in the Arab world, despite the prior British promise of independence in return for the Arabs’ revolt against the Ottoman ...

Böhm-Bawerk: Austrian Economist Who Said “No” to Big Government

by Richard M. Ebeling August 11, 2014

We live at a time when politicians and bureaucrats only know one public policy: more and bigger government. Yet, there was a time when even those who served in government defended limited and smaller government. One of the greatest of these died one hundred years ago on August 27, 1914, the Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk.Böhm-Bawerk is most famous ...