March 8th was International Women’s Day. Festivities included rallies, museum dedications, and even a Google search doodle to mark the occasion. In the spirit of the day, many commentators have called to re-double efforts for gender equality around the globe. In a less known spirit of the day, commentators also called on governments to step […]
From The Atlantic’s Marian Tupy: Let us start at the well of the socialist renewal, the Vermont senator. Sanders, as everyone knows, calls himself a “democratic socialist.” The word “democratic” is fundamental here, because historically socialism has not, typically, come about as a result of free and fair elections. In most socialist countries, like the […]
Do you want to be a leader on your campus? Are you excited to make a difference about issues you care about? Do you want to get involved, but aren’t sure where to start? Below are just a few great student groups to check out. Find a local group or chapter today, or start your […]
On Thursday, just hours after the UN passed tough sanctions on North Korea in response to the country’s recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, North Korea further escalated tensions by firing short-range missiles off its east coast. It’s unclear how effective these sanctions will be; the behavior of North Korea’s government is unpredictable at […]
Another election year, another debate over the future America’s health care system. Though some of us may have thought we put this debate behind us with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, it has reared its ugly head again. For good reason. Health care costs in America are ballooning much faster than inflation, and […]
“Is Now the Time to Kill the $100 Bill?” That’s the title of a Wednesday, February 17 article in the Wall Street Journal, prompted in part by a blog post from former Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence H. Summers.The article states that the Treasury Department has no current plans to eliminate the $100 bill, so […]
Nobody likes taxes. But not all taxes are equally bad. From a moral perspective, some taxes are more unjust than others – imposing costs, for instance, on precisely those people who are least able to afford them. And from an economic perspective, some taxes are more inefficient than others, distorting economic activity by discouraging work […]
What is the best way, if at all, for medication to be regulated? How do you balance the right of consumers to purchase what they want with protection of consumers from dangerous or fraudulent medical treatments? Professor Howie Baetjer tackles this question in the following Learn Liberty video, but what do you think?
Frank Underwood is coming back in season four of the Netflix political drama House of Cards and just in time for the presidential primary season. You know what that means; it’s time to brush up on public choice theory. What better way to do that than to take (or retake) our House of Cards On […]
Reason recently shared their video on dying patient and the right to try, noting that the Goldwater Institute will be releasing a study this week on the failure of the FDA’s Expanded Access program. Though the program is intended to let terminally ill patients try experimental drugs which have not yet cleared the FDA’s approval […]
If you’re a fan of Learn Liberty, you’re probably interested in learning more about libertarian ideas and discovering the libertarian perspective on topics like history, economics and philosophy. But did you know you can learn more and discuss and debate those ideas with other students and Learn Liberty professors? IHS Summer Seminars are week-long summer […]
The Red Rising trilogy is a “must read” for those who follow young adult dystopias, dystopian fiction in general, and contemporary science fiction, as well as those interested in “big idea” fiction about individualism and liberty. Red Rising owes a debt to many science fiction works that came before it, from Frank Herbert’s Dune and […]
If you’ve ever wondered about the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing “Great Recession,” you’re not alone. It’s not hard to point fingers at banks, financial institutions, and regulators—but do you know the underlying causes of financial crises? In our new On Demand program, Financial Crises and Government, we team up with professors like Stephen […]
Now that we’ve had eight years to digest the most recent financial crisis, the accepted narrative puts the blame squarely on the private banking sector. The conventional wisdom goes that the greedy banksters on Wall Street – not regulated thoroughly enough – took some risky bets on sub-prime mortgages and collapsed the housing market. It’s […]
This post by Professor Steve Horwtiz originally appeared on the Foundation for Economic Education’s blog back in November of 2015. The following are excerpts. What Menger and others argued was that value is subjective. That is, the value of a good is not determined by the physical inputs, including labor, that helped to create it. […]
For over five years, the team here at Learn Liberty has been producing content for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and even on our own gamified website. We’ve reached millions of students with videos, blogs, and graphics discussing topics from Star Wars to the Cold War. We have done these things for a specific reason: to ask questions, challenge the […]
Should police officers be obligated to inform suspects when they can refuse to be searched? Why might it be wise to refuse to consent to a search, even if the person being searched is not guilty of a crime and has ‘nothing to hide?’
You’ve probably heard about racial disparity in the U.S. criminal justice system. With the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York in the last few years, national attention has been brought to racial injustice in policing. But it’s not just the police who are responsible for racial discrimination in the […]
Professor Donald Boudreaux has an excellent piece over at Cafe Hayek, where he rebuts a common argument he’s been hearing lately in support of Donald Trump: Trump has proven time and again he knows his stuff when it comes to economics. He has a personal wealth of $10Billion proving his understanding. Hard to argue with […]
Are you just starting your career? Just graduated, or working entry level jobs? Do you want to learn more about the ideas of freedom, or work at an organization which advances those ideas? Consider applying for the Public Interest Fellowship. The D.C.-based fellowship offers full-time, paid employment for two years. Fellows rotate through a number […]
For more of Spooner’s libertarian anarchist criticism of the US Constitution, check out his “No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority.”
The first time I ever voted, I voted badly: I voted for a plan to use government money to build a soccer stadium and hockey arena in Columbus, Ohio, where I grew up. A few months later, I moved to Tuscaloosa to start college. Along the way, I stopped in Birmingham for a few days […]
Did you know that the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution? Okay, maybe you did. But can you name all the amendments, and what they protect? You’re probably familiar with the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments, which are commonly referenced and protect free speech, the right to bear arms, and […]