Daily Articles

TGIF: Intervention Begets Intervention

by Sheldon Richman December 21, 2012

Among the many valuable doctrines associated with the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises is his “critique of interventionism.” Originally published in German in 1929, then published in English in 1977, Mises’s book A Critique of Interventionism summed up his position this way: In a private property order isolated intervention fails to achieve what its sponsors ...

Is a Balanced Budget the Answer?

by Laurence M. Vance December 21, 2012

According to the Treasury Department’s “Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government,” the U.S. government took in $2.449 trillion in revenue during fiscal year 2012 — but spent $3.538 trillion. That means the government spent $1.089 trillion more than it took in. Although it was under George W. Bush that the United States ...

The Fight over Right-to-Work

by Sheldon Richman December 20, 2012

The “right-to-work” issue is back. When a state passes a right-to-work law, as Michigan did this month, employers in that state can no longer agree to require workers to pay union fees as a condition of employment. Supporters of right-to-work see it as a way to protect workers from being forced to support unions against their will. Many opponents of ...

The Calling: Risk, Tradeoffs, and Freedom

by Steven Horwitz December 20, 2012

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, people from all over the political spectrum are chiming in with their own recommendations of what should be done to prevent this kind of horrific tragedy. For my purposes here, I want to put aside two rather obvious points in order to explore some more subtle ones. First, for American politicians, especially President ...

Torture, Torture Everywhere

by Andy Worthington December 20, 2012

For those of us who have been arguing for years that senior officials and lawyers in the Bush administration must be held accountable for the torture program they introduced and used in their “war on terror,” last week was a very interesting week indeed. There were developments in Strasbourg, in London, and in Washington, D.C., that all pointed towards ...

Guns, Security, and Liberty

by Tim Kelly December 19, 2012

The barrage of anti-gun-rights rhetoric in the aftermath of last week’s massacre at an elementary school in Connecticut was predictable. The usual suspects appeared on various network and cable news shows to politicize the tragedy by blaming private gun ownership and calling for stricter gun-control laws. Leading the assault on the Second Amendment was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: December 16, 2012 (video)

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 19, 2012

TGIF: Right-to-Work Laws and the Modern Classical-Liberal Tradition

by Sheldon Richman December 14, 2012

It’s not widely known, but an earlier generation of libertarians condemned so-called right-to-work laws as anti-market. For example, Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom, compared right-to-work to anti-discrimination laws. Ayn Rand also opposed right-to-work laws. The Spring 1966 issue of the libertarian student-run journal New Individualist Review carried Professor Hirschel Kasper’s article “What’s Wrong with ...

The Corporatist Intelligence Agency

by Tim Kelly December 12, 2012

While the CIA is commonly understood to be an intelligence agency, we shouldn’t forget the important role it has played in carrying out clandestine operations that have benefited the financial elite. This accusation is substantiated by the CIA’s elitist origins, its well-documented connections to Wall Street, and its sordid history of carrying out assassinations, staging coups, and fomenting civil wars. The ...

Why Is Gambling Illegal?

by Laurence M. Vance December 11, 2012

Every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. five white balls are selected out of a drum containing 59 white balls, and one red ball is chosen out of a drum containing 35 red balls. The jackpot is won by matching all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball. Tickets cost $2. After rolling more than ...

The Political Use and Abuse of Children

by Wendy McElroy December 11, 2012

On December 7, President Obama signed the Child Protection Act of 2012. The act continues a political trend that harms children psychologically and endangers them physically — namely, the trend of fearmongering about child abuse. Certainly, child abuse exists, but more than enough laws already exist to address the issue in all its manifestations. More than enough cameras and ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: December 9, 2012 (video)

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 11, 2012