In a recent article of mine, I debunked the red herring of the “roads” argument that many modern socialists throw around. It turns out that lately this article has gotten some pretty lively responses from its critical readers. One such commenter was someone I might have expected to be on my side (politically speaking) as he was presumably a
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“Without Austrian economics, I would not have had my political career.” These are the words of Ron Paul summarizing his belief that the Austrian school of economic thought provides the best framework for understanding the principles and blessings of a society organized around personal liberty. This should not be confused as saying that to study
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In response to North Carolina’s new law regarding bathroom usage, the NBA announced that they will be removing their 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte. Fine, good for them. If they feel that the law is bigoted in nature, or unfair to certain groups of people, the NBA is perfectly within their rights to protest and
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Do you think that China’s currency manipulation is so inconsequential that we should continue the Bush and the Obama “no stick” replies to their repeated currency provocations? I understand that getting tough with China is not good news for USA retailers that make millions off of selling artificially cheap Chinese knockoffs. Nevertheless, for people like myself
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Regarding the defeat of the insurgents at the RNC, it should be noted that they were defeated fair and square. There was no denial of the process afforded any member of the Rules Committee. The fact that the insurgents did not have enough votes to force a change in the rules does not suggest anti-democratic
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There are two obvious branches of the economy. There is the market economy, entirely benevolent in nature and identified by its voluntary and mutually beneficial transactions, its natural coordination of scarce resources, and its ability to increase prosperity. And the political economy which is entirely malevolent in nature, and is identified by its reliance on
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It has been almost three weeks since former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Marc Allan Feldman passed away. Feldman, an anesthesiologist from Cleveland, was a beloved Party activist who finished 5th in the presidential primary voting at the Libertarian Party convention in May. Among his many accomplishments in both his professional life, as well as in
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I’ve recently witnessed an interesting phenomenon: self-hating capitalists. The sort of people who still hold all the same perspectives and notions as I, but who are ashamed of publicly admitting what they are – and associating with the likes of me, a capitalist who isn’t afraid to let my colors show. But the reasons they
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A robust discussion last week between Jeff Deist, President of the Mises Institute, and Michael Boldin, Executive Director of the Tenth Amendment Center, showed how libertarians of different stripes can come together while reaching out to the broader public by sticking to the issues that matter. Boldin appeared on the Mises Institute’s Audio/Video Podcast for
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Minimum wage has long been a controversial topic in the current political mainstream by two well-meaning sides. The political left wants to raise the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to earn more and better raise families. Their opponents on the right however warn that while it may raise worker salaries, it would force
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Leading up to the big moment, there had been a lot of heated rhetoric and high stress anticipation. Would the United Kingdom actually vote to leave the European Union? When the news broke this morning, everyone reacted and did so strongly. After it was official that the vote was 51.9% in favor of leaving, Prime
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Senator Elizabeth Warren has a huge following on the left. She is widely considered a progressive hero, even if she is backing AP-nominated candidate Hillary Clinton over the true progressive and fellow Senate colleague Bernie Sanders. Her fiery rhetoric mirrors that of Senator Sanders, with hatred thrown at Wall Street and other rich people, while
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Although he passed away over two decades ago, death hasn’t stopped the iconic libertarian economist Murray N. Rothbard from releasing new material. According to Rothbard’s long-time confidant and biographer Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, a group of “lost columns” are going to be released to the public that Rothbard supposedly penned in the 1960’s alongside a
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For quite some time, health insurance in America has been a heated topic of discussion. This is something that escalated with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , otherwise known as “Obamacare.” What degree of government intervention do we allow in our healthcare decisions? Should they be involved at all? Some could argue for
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Because of the enduring legacy of Ron Paul, most liberty-minded individuals understand the importance of sound money in relation to freedom. It is now a well-understood fact that a government stripped of its power to print money is necessarily a limited one. That is why the cause of liberty and the gold standard go hand-in-hand.
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The age of social media has given rise to an increasingly large group of people who believe that a couple sentences, or even just a few words posted on a picture constitute an effective argument. While in some ways, political and philosophical debate is healthier than ever before, the over reliance on simplistic arguments is
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Economic premises do not claim or suggest any judgments about what is right and wrong, or good and bad. So, for instance, economics does not tell you that unemployment is “bad”; it just points out the inevitable consequences of, say, a minimum wage law. Thus, economics can and does say that if your goal is to help more poor
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James J. Hill is unquestionably one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history. This past weekend marked the 100th anniversary of his passing. He is best remembered for the successful construction of the only transcontinental railroad to not go bankrupt. He didn’t accept government subsidies, and argued eloquently against his competitors who did: “The government
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We are routinely being sold on this idea that the solution to poverty is more government power and more regulation. Rarely are any connections made when catastrophic events occur as a result of these policies. Instead of considering the alternative – freedom – they continue to look for government-created solutions when they are the ones who created
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If you asked most children what a floppy disk is, they wouldn’t have the slightest clue. While most computers today do not even use one – a sign of progress – a recent report states that the U.S. Pentagon is still using 8-inch floppy disks from the 1970s to operate its nuclear weapons. This should be a disturbing revelation on many
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Among the various sects of libertarianism, one has been receiving a certain amount of undue attention: “left”-libertarianism. As an anarcho-capitalist, I have my disagreements with left-libertarians, and am curious as to why they are generating the amount of interest they are. One reason for this may be their mode of communication. Attempting to decipher much
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Central banks and other globalist interests have long sought to eliminate cash and replace it with an entirely digital currency as another method of directly controlling the global population. Now, the toy manufacturer Hasbro and former Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Economist of the World Bank Larry Summers have joined the propaganda war against
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Continued from Part II: Regulations and Free Trade. Perhaps Reagan’s most egregious hypocrisies were his actions in the name of the “War on Drugs” while espousing the common bromides about liberty. “Government’s first duty,” a common Reagan quote from a 1981 speechbegins, “is to protect the people, not run their lives.” But when it came to what
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Continued from Part I – Taxation and Spending During Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, the third of his four pillars of Reaganomics was regulatory reform. Namely, he was on a mission to reduce federal regulations (an applaudable goal). This is, in fact, one of the chief reasons why democrats criticize his presidency; he supposedly spent his
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Among conservatives, Ronald Reagan is held in deific esteem. Find any Republican debate Bingo or drinking game, and his name is certain to be one of the triggers to take a drink. Even among libertarians (of the non-anarchist persuasion), Reagan is still viewed as one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest outright. The
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Recently I have become appalled at the growing rise of protectionism and nativism in the Republican Party. This sentiment has been personified by Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. Trump, a master of regurgitating economic fallacies and senseless populist rhetoric, has been drumming up support for his regressive trade policies. He has been promoting the idea that the
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Recently we have been hearing about the evil monstrosity destroying the very fabric of our society and the welfare of all who inhabit it. This supposed malevolent entity is none other than Uber…a smart phone application that provides private taxi services to its users at competitive prices. Uber has been attacked and threatened by many
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Most of the recent discussion surrounding Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) has focused on the overwhelming distrust of the President from, well, pretty much everyone. Many fear that the President plans to use trade agreement back-doors to compromise US sovereignty and ram through environmental and immigration policies that would not have a chance of making it
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In September of last year, I was pulled over by a quota-driven cop and given a ticket for speeding. The ticket carried with it a significant fine and the addition of 4-points onto my license. This past Thursday (May 28, 2015), I successfully defended myself in court, and had the charges dismissed. Leaving aside the
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Dear Government, As tax season comes to a close, the existing arrangement between you and I has recently been at the forefront of my mind. Looking back over my year’s W2’s, and contemplating the amount of money you’ve taken from me, I couldn’t help but write to express my displeasure with our situation and to
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Austrian economics is often caricatured and criticized because of its approach, or deliberate lack of an approach, to mathematical models, multivariable calculus, and econometrics. Attacks are leveled against Austrians such as Mises, Rothbard, and Kirzner for their failure or refusal to avail themselves of applied empirical research in their scholarship. The Austrian methodology most frequently
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In the healthcare industry, a certificate of need, also known by the acronym CON, is an anticompetitive licensing restriction allegedly designed to promote fair competition by requiring hospitals to demonstrate the need for certain projects and services in order to receive governmental permission for those projects and services. Under a CON scheme, a hospital–-let’s call
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A couple weeks ago, President Obama announced that he would disregard the Constitutional process and grant executive amnesty to over five million illegal immigrants living in the states, surprising exactly no one. Equally predictable was the conservative uproar, and the ensuing accusations of racism from the Left. Much of the conservative reaction rightly centered on
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Dear Oatmeal, As I was scrolling through my social media news feed yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice a letter you wrote to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Your letter, in response to Mr. Cruz referring to Net Neutrality as “Obamacare for the Internet”, portended to explain to the Senator just how Net Neutrality works. I am not Ted Cruz, but
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If you haven’t seen “UnFair the Movie”, I highly recommend getting the DVD. John Sullivan, the same producer of “2016: Obama’s America” and “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, took the unfair title from the language of the left. Polling shows that Americans respond very favorably to the term unfair. UnFair the movie was released “Michael Moore”
More“The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” As a young man growing up in a conservative home in the ‘90s, I must have heard this cliché thrown around by liberals a thousand times. I really never gave it much thought. Even though my family often toed the poverty line, we worked hard to
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In my first year at the university, a friend of mine referred to me as a raging liberal. I was very involved in the peace movement and still believe that offensive war is a failure of governments to solve disagreements in a rational way. While I disagree vigorously with the postmodern association of “liberalism” as
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Once upon a time in America our grandfathers were able to work at decent jobs where they actually produced goods that the world needed and were able to provide a comfortable life for their large families. Grandma didn’t have to work and most families owned their own homes and lived relatively debt free. Welcome to America today where
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Lyndon Johnson launched the “War on Poverty” in 1964. In the fifty years since its inception, hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars have been spent by the government, countless governmental programs have been implemented, and numerous and enormous bureaucracies have been created. The results of these initiatives have largely been that of failure,
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