Daily Articles

Fighting Discrimination without the Government

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2014

Should the government coercively sanction business owners who refuse to serve customers because of their race or ethnicity? While such behavior is troubling — judging persons by their involuntary membership in a group eats at the foundation of libertarianism, respect for human dignity — the refusal to serve someone on such a basis is nevertheless an exercise of self-ownership, property ...

How Trade Wars Shaped Early America, Part 1

by James Bovard June 1, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 Fair trade is once again a rallying cry for many Americans. Many contemporary leftists believe that the U.S. government should impose restrictions or tariffs on imported goods that are alleged to have been produced by underpaid or oppressed Third World workers. Few contemporary protectionists are aware of the sordid history of trade ...

Class Theory, Part 2: Modern Progressive Class Analysis

by Anthony Gregory June 1, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 On September 17, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement staged its first protests in Zuccotti Park, a location in New York’s financial district. This “direct action” movement has been defined in terms of its opposition to economic inequality, institutional corruption, and the revolving door between corporate America ...

The Defining Challenge of our Time

by George Leef June 1, 2014

Why Liberty — Your Life, Your Choices, Your Future edited by Tom G. Palmer (Jameson Books 2013) 116 pages. With this short, easily read, yet intellectually powerful book, Tom Palmer continues his work of making libertarianism the philosophy that will appeal to and animate young people around the globe. While the arguments for vastly downsizing our enormous, meddlesome, and ...

The Boast in the Machine

by Joseph R. Stromberg June 1, 2014

Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen (Dutton 2013), 304 pages. In Average Is Over, George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen delivers good news and bad news with nearly equal enthusiasm. Basically, artificial “intelligence” (AI) is aggregating the “knowledge of the entire world” and intruding everywhere, ready to overturn our lives, ...

TGIF: Trivial Dispute: Obama versus the Interventionists

by Sheldon Richman May 30, 2014

American politics is largely a series of debates over unimportant details. These debates are conducted far above the fundamental level because the supposed contenders share the same premises. Where they disagree is at the level of application, and so the disagreements end up being fairly minor, especially if you think the premises are wrong. This is an especially pronounced feature ...

The Danger Is Intervention, Not “Isolation”

by Sheldon Richman May 29, 2014

A lot of people are warning against America turning “isolationist.” We can dismiss the warnings—special pleadings, really—emanating from other countries, where people have free-ridden on American taxpayers for decades. If Europeans are worried about defending themselves, why are they cutting their military budgets? Not that we should mind if they do, but they should not look to us to ...

Libertarian Angle: Guantanámo, Taxation, and Immigration

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 27, 2014

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

TGIF: Immortal Keynes?

by Sheldon Richman May 23, 2014

Whatever you may think of Keynesian economics, you have to give it credit for one thing: its staying power. You can’t watch a news program without hearing pundits analyze economic conditions in orthodox Keynesian terms, even if they don’t realize that’s what they’re doing. One TV personality says that the rejection of Keynes indicates a disbelief in all science! What ...

More U.S. Intervention in Libya?

by Sheldon Richman May 22, 2014

Except for the 2012 deadly attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya has dropped out of American news coverage since President Obama and NATO’s so-called humanitarian intervention in 2011. The American public has been led to believe that except for that terrorist outburst, things have been going pretty well in the country formerly ruled ...

Conservatives and Chocolate Milk

by Laurence M. Vance May 22, 2014

Lawmakers in the state of Connecticut recently passed legislation to ban chocolate milk from the state’s public schools. The milk ban was included in a bill to make “minor revisions” to the state’s education statutes that unanimously passed both chambers of the Connecticut General Assembly on the final night of the legislative session. Milk served in ...

The Libertarian Angle: Insider Trading, Militarism, and Patriotism

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 19, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: insider trading, militarism, and patriotism. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.