Freeman

'What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear'

For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?" He goes on with an almost spooky prophecy: "Af...

The 1932 Bait-and-Switch

Were it possible to find "master minds" so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost godlike in their ability to hold the scales of justice with an even hand, such a government might be to the interests of the country; but there are none such on our political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversal of all the teachings of history. Who campaigned for a "drastic" reduction of 25 percent in federal spending, a...

Nuclear Energy Should Be Subsidized? It Just Ain't So!

There are additional costs - the harm caused by air pollution or climate change (if that's what's going on) - that producers do not pay but are imposed on the public generally. [...] they produce too much energy from dirty sources like coal and too little energy from clean sources like nuclear power.

Federal Deposit Insurance: A Banking System Built On Sand

Canada had just ten nationwide banks with about 3,000 branches, while branch banking across state lines, and often within states, was prohibited by U.S. law. [...] smaller communities could only be served by relatively weak, poorly capitalized banks. With economic adjustment prevented by government policies, a vicious cycle of souring bank loans, liquidation of deposits, further declines in the money supply, and more business failures took hold.

The Myth of the Model

Consensus consistently eludes us. [...] as I've argued in these pages before, economies are not pumps to be primed, but economic ecosystems ("Black Swans, Butterflies, and the Economy," March 2009; www.tinyurl.com/crea2y). Not models. Rules. "Institutions form the incentive structure of a society and the political and economic institutions, in consequence, are the underlying determinant of economic performance," said Douglass North in his Nobel Prize lecture. [...] he's not alone in the ...

The Private Provision of Public Goods

Mayors, city managers, and town-council members may have some incentive for making efficient decisions, but not the direct incentive that they would have if they were able to capture the profit from efficient decisions directly, as is the case with contractual governments. [...] a direct incentive exists to produce efficient constitutional rules under which a contractual government will operate, unlike the situation that exists with municipal governments.

The New Financial Imperialism

The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia defines imperialism as the policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. Because imperialism always involves the use of power, often in the form of military force, it is widely considered morally objectionable, and the term accordingly has been used by states to denounce and discredit the foreign policies of their opponents. According to a March 2, 2009, f...

Producing Jobs: Thoughts On Obama's Plan for Small Businesses

According to ADP's latest report, firms with fewer than 50 workers employed some 48 million people in December 2009; those with more than 50 had 60 million on the payroll. Because of the pain that goes with layoffs, I know how careful one will be before hiring another worker. Before hiring that one person I would want to see a lot of black ink on the operating statement, not just one or two profitable months. Because of this, I don't think a $5,000 tax credit will get the job done.

Comparing the Great Depression to the Great Recession

FDR and his advisers, despite some early moves to cut spending and control the deficit that Hoover left behind, decided that ever-larger federal spending would trigger economic expansion and pull the country out of its economic slump. [...] Roosevelt began the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which paid farmers not to produce, and then expanded Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which provided bailout money to large banks and corporations. Most of the tax hikes under Obama are p...

Are Welfare State Orphans in Good Hands?

[...] under government management, adoption from foster care has become a tortuous, burdensome process demeaning to prospective parents. Given the number of children in Washington, D. Cs adoption subsidy program, it's fair to wonder if neglect and abuse short of murder are far more widespread than anyone would like to imagine This brings us to the most shocking failure in this sorry episode.

Jefferson's Economist

Whenever I make an exchange freely, and without constraint, it is because I desire the thing I receive more than that I give; and, on the contrary, he with whom I bargain desires what I offer more than that which he renders me. [...] contra Smith, Tracy understood that people exchange unequal things on the basis of differing assessments of their utility, or usefulness. [...] like a good proto-Austrian who understands that the future is uncertain, Tracy hastens to add:

Orient Express to Hell

Shortly before I passed through, thousands of workers responded to wage cuts by ransacking communist party offices and killing two government militia men. The health system was collapsing, and the infantmortality rate was so high the government refused to register children as being born until they survived their first month.\n Human Resources The World Bank also praised the Romanian regime for its ability to mobilize the resources required to boost economic growth. International agreements ...

R.C. Hoiles and Public Schooling

Hoiles advised Read on what he believed was the underlying cause of America's alarming shift from individual liberty toward socialism: I am inclined to think that the grass roots of our trouble is our tax-supported school system. Freedom of association, including a free market, fueled the goodwill that civil society depended on; forced association destroyed it. Hoiles's evolution on education began in a "little red schoolhouse" across from his family's large farmhouse in Alliance, Ohio, whe...

The Right to Work

The licensing board defends its test, claiming it protects consumers from florists who might sell them unhealthy flowers. [...] . Because you know that even with licensing laws, there is a wide range of quality and outright quackery in every occupation.

The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism

More than 35,000 students have attended these lectures. [...] this course has never been available in book form.

Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses

[...] campaign contributions from big businessmen (and of course other moneyed groups, including lawyers and unions) flooded into Obama's 2008 campaign far more freely than into the campaign of the ostensibly pro-business candidate, John McCain. Readers will find their blood pressure rising as Carney takes us through the vast corporate welfare tucked into ObamaCare, the environmental crusade's "cap and trade" legislation, Obama's favoritism toward the United Auto Workers and the car companie...

The Case for Big Government

Madrick's frequent denunciations of "the age of limits" can mean nothing else. Since scarcity and the human actions to deal with it are the ultimate foundations of economics, the case for big government is based not on economics but rather on special pleading devoid of principle and logic.

Race & Liberty in America: The Essential Reader/Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America

The Essential Reader edited by Jonathan Bean University Press of Kentucky/ Independent Institute * 2009 * 352 pages * $42.50 hardcover; $21.20 paperback Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America by Judge Andrew Napolitano Thomas Nelson * 2009 * 320 pages * $25.99 Reviewed by Roger Clegg Two recent books criticize racial discrimination from a classicalliberal perspective. The Scandalous History of the Small Business Administration. In his introduction, "Civil Right...

Financial Fiasco: How America's Infatuation with Homeownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis

Many factors led to the global financial fiasco, Norberg writes, including a naive policy that privatized profits and socialized losses, risk-taking based on blind faith in computer models' ability to predict the market, and a false sense of security bred by government assurances that the taxpayers would back up bad loans. According to Norberg, after the dot-com bubble and 9/11, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acted to avoid a recession by stimulating the economy with record-low inte...

Drugs, Economics, and Liberty

[...] it's cocaine because there is far less bulk per dollar of value. [...] one effect of prohibition is the tendency toward increased sales and use of more-concentrated forms of drugs that can include products such as crack cocaine, ice, and meth.