Daily Articles

Conscription

by Daniel Webster November 1, 1990

This bill indeed is less undisguised in its object, and less direct in its means, than some of the measures proposed. It is an attempt to exercise the power of forcing the free men of this country into the ranks of an army, for the general purposes of war, under color of a military service. It is ...

Book Review: Rock Around the Bloc

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1990

Rock Around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union by Timothy W. Ryback (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) 272 pp., $21.95. My own taste in music runs along classical lines: Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi and Haydn. And in 20th-century music, I prefer the "Cotton Club" rhythm of Duke Ellington and the sound of ...

Racism, Control, and Rock and Roll

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1990

Civil rights laws are among the most repugnant forms of political control in American society. Not only are they a severe violation of the principles of freedom, they also have totally failed to achieve their purported end — the elimination of racism in America. Few intelligent people will deny that ...

Race and the Market Process

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1990

In the 1850s, a Southerner named George Fitzhugh wrote two books entitled, Sociology for the South: or The Failure of Free Society and Cannibals All! Or Slaves Without Masters. The essence of his argument was summarized by him in one sentence: "Liberty is an evil which government is intended to correct." The free society and the market economy, ...

Discrimination

by F.A. Harper October 1, 1990

... Many of the leading problems of our day, I believe, stem from a thought-disease about discrimination. It is well known that discrimination has come to be widely scorned. And politicians have teamed up with those who scorn it, to pass laws against it — as though morals can be manufactured by the pen of ...

Book Review: Preferential Policies

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1990

Preferential Policies: An International Perspective by Thomas Sowell (New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1990) 221 pp.; $17.95. America was founded upon the idea that it is the individual who possesses rights. This was counter to the political order that dominated in the rest of the world. Practically everywhere else, it was accident of birth that determined one's "privileges." ...

Letting Go of Socialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1990

Socialism has held the world in its grip since the beginning of the 20th century. People everywhere fell for the seductive allure of governmental security. Now on the eve of the 21st century, people all over the world are considering letting go of the socialist nightmare. But tragically, one of ...

The Impossibility of Socialism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1990

In May 1988, the Soviet newspaper Pravda ran an article which summarized the condition of the Soviet socialist economy: "Not one of the 170 essential sectors has fulfilled the objectives of the Plan a single time over the last 20 years ... this has brought about a chain reaction of hardship and imbalance which has led to 'planned ...

Sinking in a Sea of Buts

by Leonard Read September 1, 1990

There were five of us at a predinner get-together, one an Austrian. These friends were each as near purists in the freedom philosophy as one ever comes upon — which is the only reason for mentioning one man's dissent. His dissent seemed insignificant, but it's the minor deviations and inconsistencies of the philosophical elite — ...

Book Review: The Awakening of the Soviet Union

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1990

The eyes of the world have been riveted on events in Eastern Europe. With what seemed like spectacular speed, the Communists who had ruled these countries since shortly after the end of the Second World War were replaced in most cases by non-Communists. These new leaders have declared their intention of respecting the individual rights of their citizens, reinstituting ...

The Sanctity of Private Property, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1990

Part 1 | Part 2 No myth is more pervasive among the people of the United States than that which claims that the American economic system is based on the sanctity of private property. The American people have been taught since the first grade in their government schools that America is the bastion of private property while the Soviet ...

Is Liberty Too Extreme?

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1990

There is one type of question, more than any other, that the advocate of freedom is likely to be asked over the years: Human liberty and freedom of choice are, of course, important social and moral goods, but can't they be pushed too far? Is it not better to work for, ...