Daily Articles

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 21: The Keynesian Revolution and the Early Critics of Keynes

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1998

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Throw D.C.’s Government Out of School

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1998

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that D.C. public schools have opened on time this year. Perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty. Are the children of the district really better off being herded back into the public school system? Despite decades of mandatory-attendance laws and the expenditure of tens of millions ...

Eliminate, Don’t Reform, the IRS

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1998

Yet again, a taxpayer "bill of rights" has been enacted into law. And so, after all the recent revelations of Internal Revenue Service abuse of peaceful citizens, we can all now be confident that the tax collector will respect the rights and dignity of every American. Right. And pigs have started ...

Home Runs and the Capricious Tax Man

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1998

Everyone was appalled when a spokesman at the Internal Revenue Service said that a big tax bill lay in store for the fan who retrieved Mark McGwire's record-breaking 62nd home-run baseball and returned it to the slugger. Then everyone breathed a sigh of relief when IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti said, in ...

The Legalization of Prostitution

by James Bovard September 1, 1998

Prostitution has long been illegal in the vast majority of the United States. Unfortunately, laws against prostitution often bring out the worst among the nation's law-enforcement agencies — and pose a growing threat to public health. As fear of the spread of AIDS rises, the legalization of prostitution offers ...

In Praise of Working People

by Wendy McElroy September 1, 1998

A prominent difference between the 19th-century libertarian movement and the contemporary one lies in their attitudes toward working people. These are people who are not primarily interested in reading economic or political theory but who focus their energies instead on making a decent living or raising a healthy family. These are intelligent people who understand the impact of laws ...

Book Review: Free-Market Feminism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1998

Free-Market Feminism by David Conway (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1998); 96 pages; £7.00. The Soviet Union may be gone, but the Marxian mindset still dominates the intellectual climate of the world. Many of the fashionable fads of our time are merely variations on Marx's conception of class conflict. The residues of socialism also still dominate the general understanding ...

Clinton’s Job Performance Puzzle

by Sheldon Richman August 2, 1998

The pundits are bewildered over the public's apparently contradictory response to President Clinton during his recent troubles. Most people have a low opinion of his character. Yet at least 60 percent of those polled think he's doing a terrific job and should not resign. How can this be? Assuming the polling results are accurate, it ...

Protectionism: Rearing Its Ugly Head Again

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1998

One of the principal tenets of libertarianism is the right of people to freely trade their goods and services with others. The reasoning is based on moral principles underlying private property and individual freedom. Each of us has the right to sustain his life by utilizing the talents and abilities with which we have been endowed by the Creator. ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 20: Keynesian Economics and the Hubris of the Social Engineer

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1998

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 ...

Forget the Trade Deficit!

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 1998

Memo to newspaper editors: Stop publishing stories about the trade deficit. You are needlessly worrying people about something that means absolutely nothing. Forget the trade deficit. Except in the most trivial sense, there's no such thing. Adam Smith, that Scotsman who knew a fair bit about political ...

Tariffs as Enemies of Freedom

by James Bovard August 1, 1998

Some prominent protectionists, such as Pat Buchanan, are portraying high tariffs as an engine of national liberation — as a way to save Americans from foreign threats. However, tariffs always have been and always will be an enemy to individual freedom. The U.S. tariff code is the accumulated junk heap ...