In a recent symposium on Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty, philosopher Matt Zwolinski takes issue with Rothbard on Murray’s views of freedom and property rights.Original Article: Zwolinski Tries to Take Rothbard to the Mat
The decades of American and European intervention in Africa are coming to an end, and things are even worse for American interests there. Perhaps overthrowing governments and trying to dictate political outcomes wasn’t a good idea.Original Article: Blowback in the African Coup Belt
Despite statements from Biden and other progressives, profits in a market economy are not a form of plunder. Instead, they represent entrepreneurial gains that mostly benefit consumers.Original Article: Profit Is Not Plunder
Mainstream economists claim money has purchasing power because the government issuing the money has so declared. That makes no sense.Original Article: How Does Money in Our Possession Acquire Value?
For most Americans, the debate is about what size the welfare state should be. But why is there a welfare state at all? Original Article: Thinking Properly about Public Welfare
Many people are selling their gold to make ends meet. Others are buying gold as insurance against mounting price inflation. Original Article: As the Dollar Falters, Gold Becomes Insurance, Not Speculation
Unfortunately, these assaults on the First Amendment continue to find support even among people who pretend to be in support of freedom and opposed to federal power.Original Article: War Hysteria Fuels New Attacks on Free Speech
Despite the media definitions of the Trump trial as a “hush money trial,” the actual criminal charges are contrived and legally unprecedented. This is a show trial.Original Article: The Hush-Money Case against Trump Is Ridiculous and Revealing
Progressives claim that profits are an unjust transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. In reality, entrepreneurs earn profits by directing resources from less valued to more valued uses to satisfy consumer needs.Original Article: Free-Market Profit Comes From Voluntary Exchange, not Exploitation
What better way to explain the relationship between higher-order and lower-order goods than with food? Here, we look at the falafel sandwich.Original Article: What Can Carl Menger Teach Us about Falafel Sandwiches?
Congress claims to have targeted TikTok because China's government allegedly uses it to spy on Americans. Besides dealing with a nonexistent threat, the bill gives the federal government vast new powers to misuse.Original Article: The TikTok Ban Is the Next Patriot Act
Progressive historians, journalists, and politicians claim that the Industrial Revolution and the growth of industry brought poverty and exploitation to American workers. The truth is much different, even if it is rarely heard.Original Article: The American Labor Market: Fact vs. Fiction
Somalia is a country invented by European intervention. The region known as Somaliland ought to be free to secede from this imperialist creation. Original Article: Somaliland Needs Self-Determination
Despite the accusations that Javier Milei is a fascist in libertarian clothes, many of his reforms have been successful in reversing some of the damage done to Argentina's economy by real fascists.Original Article: No, Milei Is Not a Fascist
In publicly opposing apartheid, William H. Hutt saw how legal segregation kept black South Africans from pursuing legitimate economic goals. To Hutt, apartheid deprived people of equality of economic opportunity, which kept them in poverty.Original Article: State Coercion and the Injustice of Apartheid
While Austrian and feminist critiques of neoclassical economics have some similarities, they also differ strongly on important points. Feminist critiques are based upon what Mises called polylogism, while Austrian critiques are based upon praxeology.Original Article: Can There Be an Alliance between Austrian and Feminist Schools of Economics?
Government officials like to claim they are doing something about reducing poverty. The trouble is, of course, that what they are doing makes things worse. Here on Income Tax Day, we recommend that next time, they should do nothing.Original Article: The War on Poverty Makes Poverty Worse
F.A. Hayek coined the term spontaneous order to point out that the prosperous societies are also societies where people are free to pursue their own goals. The result is, ironically, harmony that cannot come about through central state planning.Original Article: The Intellectual Humility of the Spontaneous Order
States know that treason and sedition laws are about much more than matters of law and order. They are essential components of enhancing state power. Original Article: Abolish all Treason and Sedition Laws
A strategy for liberty must be both optimistic and realistic. Murray Rothbard understood that important point and laid out strategies and their moral justification.Original Article: An Optimistic Strategy for Liberty