Daily Articles

Repeal the Welfare System

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

The presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Robert Dole, and his party are distressed that President Clinton may have preempted them on the issue of welfare reform. The GOP favors shifting welfare responsibility to the states. Just before Dole was to give a major speech on the subject, Clinton ...

The Failure of the Republican “Revolution,” Part 5

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 It would be difficult to find a better example of socialist central planning than public schooling. The system is run by a board of government officials, ...

Good Intentions are Not Enough

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

In his new book The Choice , Bob Woodward reports on a meeting among President Clinton, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and several self-help gurus. During the meeting, Clinton was asked to list his best qualities. "I have a good heart," replied the president. "I really do." We don't know whether Hillary Rodham ...

We Need Freedom, Not School Standards

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

Academic standards are all the rage. Nearly everyone thinks they are the key to improving the dismal state of American education. The nation's governors recently affirmed their intention to hold the children of their states to high standards. President Clinton supported the governors' position when he told them, ...

The Toys “R” Us Case: Call Off the Antitrust Dogs

by Dominick T. Armentano June 1, 1996

Sometimes you wonder whether government lives in the same world as the rest of us. Take the Federal Trade Commission's action against Toys 'R' Us. The FTC charges that the nation's largest toy retailer pressured toy manufacturers not to sell certain popular toys to discount stores, ...

Free Trade, Peace, and Goodwill Among Nations: The Sesquicentennial of the Triumph of Free Trade

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1996

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is justly considered one of the intellectual fountainheads of economic liberty. With a brilliant combination of logic and historical example, Smith demonstrated, like few others had up to his day, that governmental controls, regulations, and restrictions on economic freedom were the fundamental causes of ...

Fending Off Government

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

President Clinton's State of the Union address had two basic messages: 1) the era of big government is over, and 2) we can't go back to the time when "people fended for themselves." He doesn't really mean the era of big government is over. He's up for reelection. His wife (I assume this is not merely guilt by conjugal association) ...

Freeing the Education Market

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

Many a profound word is spoken unwittingly. Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office once issued a paper stating that the literacy rate in Massachusetts has never been as high as it was before compulsory schooling was instituted. Before 1850, when Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to force children ...

Kill a Boy, Get a Medal

by James Bovard June 1, 1996

On March 1, 1996, the U.S. Marshals Service gave its highest award for valor to five U.S. marshals involved in the 1992 Ruby Ridge, Idaho, shoot-out, including the marshal who shot a 14-year-old boy in the back and killed him, and another marshal who started a firefight by shooting the boy's dog without provocation. The valor award announcement symbolizes ...

Source of Rights

by Frank Chodorov June 1, 1996

The axiom of what is often called "individualism" is that every person has certain inalienable rights. For example, "individualism" holds that property as such obviously has no rights; there is only the inherent right of a person to his honestly acquired property. . . . The axiom of socialism ...

Foreign Workers are Good for America

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

The U.S. Labor Department says the program that allows foreigners to work in this country is a "sham" because it fails to protect American workers' jobs and wages. Under the program, thousands of noncitizens work in the United States. But those workers are supposed to have "unique" skills ...

Book Review: Classics in Austrian Economics

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1996

Classics in Austrian Economics: A Sampling in the History of a Tradition edited by Israel M. Kirzner (London: William Pickering, 1994); three volumes; $300. The Austrian school of economics began in 1871 with the publication of Principles of Economics by Carl Menger. In the 1860s, while working in the Austrian ministry of prices, Menger came to realize that the actual way ...