Daily Articles

Edwin Cannan: An Economist Who Protested against Big Government

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2021

One hundred years ago, the countries of Europe were trying to recover from the consequences of the First World War. It was not only the cost in human life (estimated to be more than 20 million people) and the military expenditures of nearly $5 trillion in today’s dollars. It was the political and ideological legacies of the war, as ...

Frank Chodorov’s Peaceful, Persistent Revolution, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy June 1, 2021

Part 1 | Part 2 It is easy to imagine the libertarian icon Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) modeling himself on his mentor, the Old Right icon Frank A. Chodorov (1887–1966), in the same manner as Chodorov undoubtedly looked to his mentor, Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945). As a young grad student Rothbard stumbled across Chodorov’s pamphlet Taxation Is Robbery. His reaction: ...

The Paternalist Instincts of a Central Planner

by Richard M. Ebeling May 26, 2021

Both supporters and critics of President Joe Biden have been surprised and amazed by the immensity of his political agenda and his recent actions for a far more expansive role for the federal government than many had been expecting from his time in office. He is clearly on a “mission” and is pursuing it with seeming urgency. So, what ...

Steps Toward Freedom and Away From It

by Laurence M. Vance May 25, 2021

Two things that are near and dear to the hearts of libertarians are the removal of government occupational licensing and the elimination of government involvement in education. Recent events concerning these issues are good examples of steps toward freedom and steps away from it. Licensing An occupational license is simply a certificate of permission and approval from a government-sponsored board that ...

Total Tyranny

by John W. Whitehead May 21, 2021

“There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America.”― James Bamford It never fails. Just as we get a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, there might be a chance of crawling out of this totalitarian cesspool in which we’ve been mired, we get kicked down again. In the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that ...

The National-Security State and the Kennedy Assassination

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 19, 2021

The national-security establishment's assassination of President John F. Kennedy was one of the pivotal events in our lifetime, and it continues to have an adverse impact on American life today. This conference will be oriented toward people who are not well-versed in the assassination and who wish to gain ...

Monetary Inflation’s Game of Hide-and-Seek

by Richard M. Ebeling May 18, 2021

The May 12, 2021, press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of April sent the stock markets tumbling for two days and generated fodder for the news pundits with the announcement that the CPI measure of the cost-of-living had increased 4.2 percent at an annualized ...

The Conservative Case for Welfare

by Laurence M. Vance May 14, 2021

In the third COVID-19 stimulus package — the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) — which was passed in the U.S. Congress without a single Republican vote, the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for tax year 2020 was increased from $2,000 per child, with $1,400 of this being refundable, to a fully refundable $3,000 per qualifying child (aged ...

Hayek’s Still Relevant Response to Today’s Paternalist Planners

by Richard M. Ebeling May 12, 2021

Among many American “progressives” and those in the Democratic Party establishment, there is a heady euphoria that their day has again come, that there is an opportunity to establish and implement their dream of a far more comprehensive and commanding government presence over the society. Their vision already promises well over $6 trillion of additional federal government spending; and this ...

Victimhood Professionals Exploit Victims: Look at VAWA

by Wendy McElroy May 10, 2021

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is currently in the Senate awaiting debate and reauthorization. VAWA is the federal touchstone for how sexual abuse, especially domestic violence (DV), is addressed and funded nationwide. It has vastly expanded from its 1994 roots and epitomizes not only the inevitable drift of government toward greater power but also the dynamics ...

Building Up the State Means Pulling People Down

by Richard M. Ebeling May 7, 2021

I still vividly recall sitting with a high school friend on the evening of July 20, 1969 and watching on television as astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface of the moon, a few minutes before 8 p.m., west coast Pacific time, and saying his famous words, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” ...

The Real Gateway Drug

by Laurence M. Vance May 6, 2021

Although even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that marijuana is not a gateway drug, it is a standard claim of conservatives. In response to the question it raises, “Does marijuana use lead to other drug use?” the CDC says, The majority of people who use marijuana do not go on to use other, “harder” ...