Tag: government
How a 19th century French pamphleteer preempted two centuries of economic fallacies
October 18, 2016 | Post
Frederic Bastiat lived a prolific life and left an even grander legacy.
Yes, there's an Envelope Lobby, and they're more powerful than you might think
October 18, 2016 | Post
It’s a useful illustration of the logic of political action when the state is in a position to dispense favors, whether those favors be subsidies or mandates or barriers to entry that protect special interests’ profits.
Reasons to be optimistic
October 17, 2016 | Post
Beneath the surface there’s a lot of progress occurring that should make us all feel a little more optimistic about the future.
What You Missed: Week of 10/14
October 14, 2016 | Post
Stranger Things, anarchist Spaniards, and Edward Snowden.
You Have a Constitutional Right to Record Public Officials in Public
October 12, 2016 | Post
The first amendment protects the rights of individuals to record the actions of government officials in public. US Customs and Border Protection disagrees.
After the last debate, I’m convinced America needs to reform the two-party system
October 11, 2016 | Post
The Democrats and Republicans have largely been the only two choices in presidential and congressional elections since the Civil War. It’s for that to change.
Did the Ancient Greeks Believe in Freedom?
October 3, 2016 | Post
To answer this question we must first learn the distinction between contemporary conceptions of freedom and “The Freedom of the Ancients.”
Profit Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word In Drug Development
October 2, 2016 | Post
The spread of markets into the healthcare sector has allowed us to live longer than ever before.
Why Government Doubles Down on Policy Mistakes
September 30, 2016 | Post
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” — Milton Friedman
Improving Grand Juries
September 30, 2016 | Post
The ballooning prison population in the U.S. implies that there’s a certain ease of obtaining an indictment from grand juries. Here are some modest proposals to reform grand juries to make obtaining indictments more difficult.
A Proposal to Reform Welfare and Rebuild American Community
September 26, 2016 | Post
Local communities have a better understanding of their communities’ needs than far off centralized government anti-poverty directives.
The Right to Sit During the Pledge of Allegiance
September 16, 2016 | Post
One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
How the Amish Led the Fight Against Compulsory Schooling
September 12, 2016 | Post
Because students educated at home or in private schools regularly outperform students in public schools, it seems reasonable to conclude that such accommodations have not had a detrimental effect on the quality of education in these states.
Senate Votes for Equal Slavery for Women
September 9, 2016 | Post
“Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
When Jobs Kill Wealth
September 4, 2016 | Post
A focus on jobs missing the forest for the trees. We should be focused on creating wealth, not maximizing employment.
If Markets Fail, Governments Fail Harder
August 31, 2016 | Post
The government is, at best, another tool societies can sometimes use to good effect. It is not a Deus ex machina that societies can rely upon to swoop in and bring about a happy ending.
Protecting Religious Liberty and the Common Good Aren't Mutually Exclusive
August 29, 2016 | Post
In this second installment to the series on religious freedom, Professor Mark Hall explains a third way to protecting both religious liberty and the public interest.
Why the Worst Get On Top: Class of 2016
August 26, 2016 | Post
Duke University’s great historian of thought and Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell sent the following e-mail to me, which I share here with Bruce’s kind permission (link added): Has anyone in the blogosphere noticed the chilling similarity between Hayek’s description in the Road To Serfdom (in the chapter titled “Why the Worst Get on Top“) of […]
Some Reflections on Whether We Should Abandon Religious Liberty
August 22, 2016 | Post
Impinging on religious liberty rarely, if ever, benefits the commons good, as Professor Mark Hall explains in this first installment in a series on religious liberty.
Are Foreign and Domestic Policy Really that Different?
July 28, 2016 | Post
Pundits like to talk about foreign and domestic policy as if they are completely separate concerns. But as University of Tampa professor Abby Hall has been explaining in Learn Liberty’s six part series on foreign policy, there is not as much distinction between them as people often think. In fact, foreign policy often boomerangs back […]
When Your Foreign Spying Program Become a Tool to Control Your Own People
July 22, 2016 | Post
The recent public fight between Apple and the FBI as well as the controversy over the Edward Snowden leaks make it seem as though government spying on American people is a recent phenomenon. In fact, government surveillance of U.S. citizens goes back over 100 years. Martin Luther King, for instance, was spied on extensively for […]
Venezuela vs. Ecuador (Chavismo vs. Chavismo Dollarized)
July 22, 2016 | Post
This piece was originally published at the Cato Institute. Tune into Learn Liberty’s Facebook page on Monday at 3pm for a Facebook Live event with professor Steve Hanke on this topic. With the arrival of President Hugo Chávez in 1999, Venezuela embraced Chavismo, a form of Andean socialism. In 2013, Chávez met the Grim Reaper […]
Why the Founding Fathers Risked Everything for an Untried Idea
July 7, 2016 | Post
Earlier this week, Americans celebrated one of their most meaningful holidays, their country’s Independence Day. It’s a day every American knows, a day spent with food, family, and fireworks. See Also: Why the American Revolution Was Really an Economic Revolution But, many Americans don’t know the real story that led to July 4, 1776. What […]