Tag: politics
Markets work with altruism, too
April 4, 2017 | Post
The market can route self-interest toward the common good. But the market channels altruism better than the state too.
Quietly creating freedom: Private communities and special economic zones
April 3, 2017 | Post
The astonishing growth in SEZs qualifies as a revolution of sorts, but not the usual, political kind.
Do government employees have a right to religious liberty?
April 1, 2017 | Post
Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but what should happen if the law asks bureaucrats to choose between their religion and their job?
Fashion design and copyright
March 30, 2017 | Post
Should fashion designs be eligible for copyrights? When I listen to people talk about this issue, many of the same interesting arguments come up. These people know about designer knockoffs and feel that something is not quite fair about them. Yet they also view copyists as moving innovation along in the fashion world. Copying releases […]
Women work for equality — but these 3 policy ideas don’t
March 29, 2017 | Post
This Women’s History Month, let’s avoid the trap of looking at women’s equality as a problem that only politicians can solve.
Entitlements driving Washington to trillion-dollar deficits
March 29, 2017 | Post
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released the “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027.” This annual report provides the federal government’s most comprehensive analysis of the current state of federal spending, taxes, and debt. It also provides a framework within which to analyze the President’s budget proposal and upcoming Congressional legislation. The news is […]
Anne Hutchinson: The spirit of religious liberty
March 27, 2017 | Post
Opinions of Anne Hutchinson have, shall we say, covered the waterfront. In his masterful tome, Conceived in Liberty, 20th-century economist and libertarian historian Murray Rothbard cast her as a staunch individualist and the greatest threat to the “despotic Puritanical theocracy of Massachusetts Bay.” John Winthrop, the 2nd, 6th, 9th, and 12th governor of the Massachusetts […]
Mercy Otis Warren: Conscience of Great Causes
March 25, 2017 | Post
Two centuries before “women’s lib,” in the run-up to America’s Revolutionary War, Mercy Otis Warren was already a liberated woman by the standards of her day. And she did the liberating herself. In the latter half of the 18th century, Warren was an accomplished poet, playwright, pamphleteer, and historian — though much of what she […]
Entrepreneurs create value for disabled workers.
March 24, 2017 | Post
Any entrepreneur who succeeds in reducing costs faced by a laborer who suffers from a disability can earn a profit.
History, progress, and the fate of gay marriage
March 23, 2017 | Post
The future belongs to everyone, and the arc of the universe bends nowhere in particular.
It’s never worth playing the Olympic game
March 22, 2017 | Post
Budapest has done the sensible thing and withdrawn from the competition to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Finally a refutation of the standard point about economists – that the more united their view on a subject the less attention anyone else pays to them. For the truth about the Olympics is that they are a […]
Violent video games do not cause real-world aggression
March 22, 2017 | Post
Upon seeing a copy of the (now classic) fighting game Mortal Kombat, Senator Joe Lieberman announced his intention to introduce legislation that would prohibit the sale of such games to minors.
Stop toxic partisan posts: Take the social media pledge.
March 21, 2017 | Post
My own hands are dirty and my own heart is impure; however, I have seen the light. I repent.
Mary Wollstonecraft: Libertarian Feminist
March 21, 2017 | Post
Almost two centuries before the women’s lib movement and a full century before the suffragettes, not all women were quiet subordinates to men. In this 1996 essay, historian Jim Powell provides us with an illuminating account of the brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th-century author and philosopher who never minced her words in defense of equal […]
Democracy rewards those who lust for power.
March 20, 2017 | Post
The incentives politicians face reward the concentration and consolidation of power.
How birthright citizenship made America great
March 19, 2017 | Post
Birthright citizenship aids both the assimilation and acceptance of immigrants and is largely responsible for our successful history of economic and cultural integration.
Liberty and "social" justice for all is impossible
March 19, 2017 | Post
To provide benefits under the umbrella of social justice, the government will have to violate individuals’ rights to themselves and their property.
Remembering the forgotten women, victims of government
March 17, 2017 | Post
in honor of Women’s History Month, I want to highlight three stories of women you probably have never heard of — victims of government.
How urban planners broke Brooklyn
March 17, 2017 | Post
Zoning and landmark laws have frozen much of New York into a life-size historical diorama: neighborhoods frozen in time, where the only thing that goes up is the rent.
Civil asset forfeiture: Resist, reform, repeal
March 15, 2017 | Post
Whether you’re on the right or the left, if you care about civil rights, property rights, or liberty, abolishing civil asset forfeiture should be high on your agenda.
Andrew Jackson is a bad role model for the president
March 15, 2017 | Post
Donald Trump added a portrait of Andrew Jackson to the White House Oval Office shortly after his inauguration. Why Jackson?
Vivien Kellems: "Please Indict Me!"
March 13, 2017 | Post
“All our liberties are due to [wo]men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.”
3 women who inspired the modern libertarian movement
March 12, 2017 | Post
Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand together comprise the “founding mothers” of modern libertarianism.
Huge net costs from Trump’s new executive order cutting refugees
March 11, 2017 | Post
President Trump earlier this week issued a revised version of his infamous executive order to temporarily ban the issuance of new green cards and visas for nationals from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan. The new order dropped Iraq, which eviscerated Trump’s argument that the list of banned countries is based on an existing list […]