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Jonathan Bean (∞); David T. Beito (∞); Mark Brady (∞); Anthony Gregory (∞); Keith Halderman (∞); Robert Higgs (∞); Steven Horwitz (∞); Jeffrey Rogers Hummel (∞); Lester Hunt (∞); Troy Kickler (∞); Roderick Long (∞); Wendy McElroy (∞); Paul Moreno (∞); Charles Nuckolls (∞); Ralph Raico (∞); Sheldon Richman (∞); Chris Sciabarra (∞); Jane Shaw (∞); Aeon Skoble (∞); Amy H. Sturgis (∞);

Saturday, August 3, 2013 - 13:05

Sheldon Richman

Bastiat and Subjective Marginal Utility

Frederic Bastiat really was a precursor of the Austrian school.

Menger was indeed a revolutionary, but that does not mean that no one before him glimpsed ideas that would later blossom into the Austrian school. As far back as Socrates, thinkers grasped the theory of subjective value in the praxeological sense, and we find a nearly complete subjectivist-marginalist framework 20 years before Menger took pen to paper — in the work of Frédéric Bastiat.

In Bastiat’s unfinished magnum opus, Economic Harmonies (1850), he, like Menger, put the spotlight on the choosing individual and what she tries to accomplish through exchange. Trade, for Bastiat, is an exchange of services that will render useful things: I’ll do something for you (furnish a useful thing, for example) if you do something for me. It’s up to each individual to evaluate the terms and decide if the exchange is worthwhile. Methodological individualism, marginalism, and subjectivism are all to be found in Bastiat.

Read about it here.

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - 14:25

David T. Beito

New Deal Witch Hunt

My article just appeared at National Review:

Watergate has become the default historical template for the Obama scandals, as charges about enemies lists, executive-agency politicization, and high-handed federal snooping dominate the discussion. But those hunting for historical analogies would do well to consider the even closer parallels between these events and occurrences during the New Deal and Fair Deal.

Franklin D. Roosevelt routinely audited the income taxes of such critics as Representative Hamilton Fish, a Republican who represented the president’s hometown of Hyde Park, N.Y. Democrats of that era not only found creative ways to intimidate conservative and libertarian organizations, but also, like their modern counterparts, eventually attracted charges of witch-hunting.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354706/new-deal-witch-hunt-david-t-beito

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Sunday, July 21, 2013 - 23:24

Sheldon Richman

What an Honest Conversation about Race Would Look Like

Ever since George Zimmerman’s fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin hit the national headlines last year, calls for an “honest conversation about race” have been heard throughout America. (Up until then, apparently, we’ve had only conversations about having a conversation about race.) However, one need not believe that the Zimmerman shooting and verdict were about race — I watched the trial and I don’t — to think that an honest conversation about race is indeed long overdue.

First on the agenda should be the many ways that government policies — either by intent or by palpable effect — embody racism. Let’s call them vehicles for official racism. I have in mind things like the war on certain drug manufacturers, merchants, and consumers; the crusade against “illegal” guns; the minimum wage and related laws; and the government’s schools. All of these by far take their greatest toll on people of color.

Private racism, whether violent or nonviolent, is evil and abhorrent; it is also unlibertarian — yes, even nonviolent racism is unlibertarian, as I point out in “Libertarianism = Anti-Racism.” There I wrote,

What could be a libertarian reason to oppose nonviolent racism? Charles Johnson spelled it out in The Freeman. Libertarianism is a commitment to the nonaggression principle. That principle rests on some justification. Thus it is conceivable that a...

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Thursday, July 18, 2013 - 11:23

Roderick T. Long

French Liberalism Meets Boston Anarchism

… which is actually a pretty good description of my politics.

Anyway: In 1888, the Journal des Économistes – the chief periodical of classical liberalism in France, at that time under the editorship of Gustave de Molinari himself – published an article about individualist anarchism in America, with particular focus on the writers associated with Benjamin Tucker’s periodical Liberty. The author was Sophie Raffalovich, about whom more below. Benjamin Tucker replied in the pages of Liberty a few months later. The Journal des Économistes would return to the subject of Tucker and Liberty in 1902, in a piece by Paul Ghio.

I’ve now translated and posted the pieces by Raffalovich (“The Boston Anarchists”) and Ghio (“An American Anarchist”); I’ve also posted Tucker’s reply to Raffalovich (“A French View of Boston Anarchists”).

So who was Sophie Raffalovich? Most of the information I’ve been able to find out about her (see especially here, here, and ...

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Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - 16:17

Sheldon Richman

Rand Paul, Jack Hunter, and All That

I cringe every time libertarianism is associated with the Confederate States of America. Read Jeff Hummel's Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men to see why you should too.

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Tuesday, July 9, 2013 - 15:53

Roderick T. Long

Welcome to the Desert of Huckabee

Mike Huckabee projects such an aura of cuddly friendliness, and in reality he is such a vile, bloodthirsty creep.

Just saw him favourably quoting these words from MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail:

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

Huckabee conveniently omitted the lines that follow – “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” – presumably in order to leave the impression that MLK would be down with Huckabee’s thumping-select-portions-of-the-Bible method of determining the content of the moral law.

The occasion for Huckabee’s foray into natural-law jurisprudence was his protest against the restrictions on political advocacy that churches have to follow in order to qualify for tax-exempt status.

Then after finishing up the tax-exempt...

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Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - 12:29

Robert Higgs

Why Fight for King and Country?

There is something monstrously out of whack about going to war for a large nation state.

I can understand why a man might take up arms in defense of himself, his family, his friends, perhaps even his neighborhood or his town. But once we get past the lived-in milieu, a man’s risking his life, limbs, health, and mental composure to fight for a large politically defined unit makes less and less sense, the larger the unit. Why, for example, should a man from Arizona go to war on behalf of people from New Jersey, people with whom he is not acquainted, people about whom he knows little or nothing. The man from Arizona might well have more in common with and greater concern for a typical “enemy” soldier than he has for the people of New Jersey. He might even dislike people from New Jersey and like the enemy people.

I do not care much for many Americans. I find their apparent values and modes of life offensive or worse, although I am personally acquainted with only a handful of them and so I may be doing a disservice to many of those with whom I am not personally acquainted. But in view of the constraints everyone faces, no one can really know, much less like, more than, say, a few hundred other people. What am I to make of a demand that I bear great personal risks in defense of hundreds of millions of complete strangers—for all I know, these people don’t even exist, and the Census Bureau has perpetrated a gigantic fraud in its declarations that they do.

On the opposite side of the ledger, I do know and like—indeed greatly admire and esteem—scores of people in other countries. I cannot imagine going to war against them; I’d sooner go to prison than harm them. So, if the U.S. government went to war against Guatemala, for example, it would have to count me...

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - 12:01

Roderick T. Long

Dry Humor

Although she did not drink martinis, she graciously prepared a double for me every evening before dinner. I introduced her to Tanqueray gin and Noilly Pratt vermouth, the ingredients for a perfect martini. Sensitive husband that I was, I courteously congratulated her every day on a fine martini, cautiously suggesting that it might be a touch drier. Day after day, I congratulated her, suggesting that it might be a touch drier still. One day I sipped the martini and bathed her in kisses: “Betsey, you’re wonderful, it’s perfect.” She did not take well to my gushing. Betsey almost never raised her voice, but raise it she did: “I knew it! I knew it! Of course I’m wonderful! Of course it’s perfect! You’re drinking straight gin.”
(Eugene D. Genovese, about his wife Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, in Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage)

(No, I haven’t read the whole book. If I want to read a radical socialist turned right-wing opportunist, I can always read Marx.)

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Wednesday, June 19, 2013 - 11:39

Keith Halderman

Climate Change Fear Mongering

Those who would use the natural fact that earth’s climate has been continuously changing since it existed to increase the power of government to control and steal from ordinary people gave away their game in two ways. First they started calling global warming climate change and that highlights the point that their theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming ignores the fact that the extreme instances of climate change occurred long before mankind was releasing any significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. For example when world temperatures changed around the year 1000 altering Greenland into a temperate agriculturally productive area, there were no gas guzzling SUVs or coal fired electricity generating plants.

Likewise around 1400 when Greenland began to revert to the frozen landscape we know today those factors which climate change zealots now claim government must prevent did not exist. That is the beauty of climate change which has been a basic fact life, whether it is getting warmer or cooler it is still mankind’s fault and government must do something about it. The second way they gave away their game was when they had the EPA declare carbon dioxide a pollutant and if that is true should it not be removed for the air? Now I am not a fancy scientist with a boatload of taxpayer money to study the problem but I do remember enough of my middle school earth science to know that that if you remove all of the carbon dioxide from the air all of the plant life will die and shortly afterward all of the animal life, including you and me.

What is Al Gore’s motivation? It is the same as that had by politicians for centuries, George Bush for example He thinks if he can generate enough fear it will help those who think like get elected....

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Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - 11:10

Sheldon Richman

Just Wondering

Has the NSA spying ceased pending the debate?

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Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - 19:49

Chris Matthew Sciabarra

The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies: A New Era Begins

The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies begins a new era this year: a collaboration with Pennsylvania State University Press, which will manage all aspects of design, production, distribution, and subscription fulfillment, while leaving the Editorial Board in full charge of the intellectual side of this grand adventure. As I state in the "Editor's Introduction: Change and Continuity," which appears in the new July 2013 issue: "In embarking on this new arrangement, the journal unveils a new look, but retains its commitment to introducing new writers to the ever-expanding world of Rand studies." And what a new look it is!

Check out the Notablog entry here.

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Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - 11:51

Wendy McElroy

AMERICA: THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD

[This article was originally published at The Dollar Vigilante which I urge you to browse at length. Click here.]

Two events recalled a passage from the Irish poet William Butler Yeats:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Yeats (1865-1939) wrote “The Second Coming” in 1919 to describe the moral devastation of post-WWI Europe. The “mere anarchy” is not the laissez-faire version of contract and consent between free individuals which produces good will and prosperity. The “mere anarchy” is chaos, a Hobbesian society of all-against-all that comes in the wake of sustained violence. It is a society that guts decency, loots productivity, and rewards the worst within men.

Yeats could be describing America today. Or, at least, the America that might well be tomorrow. The center cannot hold.

For more commentary and analysis, visit www.wendymcelroy.com

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Sunday, June 2, 2013 - 16:46

Sheldon Richman

Readings in Revisionist History

I've been asked to post my list of readings in revisionist history separately so the link can be distributed. I haven't read all these books, but those I haven't gotten to yet come highly recommended by people I respect. I will add to the list from time to time.

We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now, edited by Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods Jr.
The Failure of America's Foreign Wars, edited by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger
America's Second Crusade, by William Henry Chamberlin
Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal, by Ralph Raico
Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism, by Jeff Riggenbach
War Is a Lie, by David Swanson
War Is a Racket, by Smedley D. Butler
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, by Paul Fussell
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, by William Appleman Williams
The Civilian and the Military: A History of the American Antimilitarist Tradition, by Arthur Ekirch
The Politics of War: The Story of Two Wars which Altered Forever the Political Life of the...

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Friday, May 31, 2013 - 13:38

Keith Halderman

Why Coolidge Matters

Over at PJ Media, J.Christian Adams tells us why Calvin Coolidge is important

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 12:00

Sheldon Richman

Op-ed: Bangladeshi Workers Need Freed Markets

"Pro-sweatshop" is not a libertarian position. See why here.

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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 - 11:42

David T. Beito

Glenn Greenwald Tries to Educate Bill Maher on Blowback, Benghazi and Other Issues

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Thursday, May 9, 2013 - 20:38

David T. Beito

The Subversive Implications of the Fugitive

I have been enjoying episodes from "The Fugitive" on ME TV from the 1960s starring the great, but vastly underrated, David Janssen. The show communicates a highly subversive message and reveals some interesting contrasts between the 1960s and today. The main character, Richard Kimball, a respected physician in his community, has been convicted of first-degree murder by a jury of his peers but escapes on his way to the death house.

Throughout the run of the series, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people brazenly lie to the police and otherwise commit potential felonies to protect him. They make most "extreme" anti-government folks of 2013 look like wimps by comparison in their willingness to defy authority in the service of a higher moral cause.

Revealingly, Kimball, for his part, is able find a wide range of jobs without, apparently, once being asked to provide his social security number! Federal law enforcement authorities are almost completely absent and Kimball's pursuit seems to be completely a matter for local police departments.

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Sunday, May 5, 2013 - 09:11

Amy H. Sturgis

The Continuing Relevance of Philip K. Dick

From J.R. Dunn: Philip K. Dick and Our Predicament

What is this but a Philip K. Dick universe?

Dick, it seems, was a far superior prophet than the colleagues who disdained him, because, unlike many of them, he had a line on human nature, which never changes.

So what does Dick have to say about surviving and prevailing in this world?

Dick had no political solutions. His personal politics was as convoluted as the rest of his personality. He was a man of the "left," but, like Orwell, very much a left of his own devising. He was once thrown out, within a period of weeks, of meetings by the local GOP and the Communist Party, in both cases for asking penetrating questions. He had no use for authoritarian systems. (His short story "Faith of our Fathers" is one of the eeriest condemnations of communism ever written, in which the leader of a victorious worldwide communist party is indistinguishable from death itself. When he grips the protagonist's arm, he leaves stigmata that continue bleeding and refuse to heal.)

The Koch Brothers

I have great admiration for the Koch brothers who seem to be arch villains to the academic and news media elite who spend their time relentlessly spewing out disingenuous and ultimately destructive propaganda supporting the idea that organizing principle of our society should be the use of force and coercion, the methodology of government and the condition of slavery, rather than cooperation for mutual benefit, the methodology of the free market and the condition of free men.

The liberal animosity towards the brothers exists not because the Kochs believe that government’s purpose is to impose the conservative’s vision of just and prosperous country on us but rather because they believe people should to make their own life decisions which will always have the best chance of being in the person’s own best interests. The scholarships they gave me to attend the Institute for Humane Studies summer seminars twice provided with me with far more valuable education than the years I spent pilling up student loan debt listening to the argument that more government is always the answer for everything. You see liberals and conservatives advocate this same solution but the Koch brothers advocate a different one and that is why the liberal elite is so disturbed by the prospect that that some of their control of the media (http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/04/30/will-the-koch-brothers-save-los-angeles/?singlepage=true) may slip from their hands.

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Saturday, April 20, 2013 - 17:55

David T. Beito

The Stooges v. Japanese Internment Escapees

Viewing this is quite an experience. Larry, Moe, and Curly capture several menacing men who "escaped" from a Japanese "relocation camp" during World War II. The actors, who are all Asian, wear false buck teeth. They are dressed like convicts, thus better fitting the private comment of Franklin D. Roosevelt (the Teflon president in nearly every history department) that his executive order would create "concentration" rather than "internment" camps.

Three Stooges - The Yoke's On Me by XxChevellexX

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Liberty & Power: Group Blog

Bastiat and Subjective Marginal Utility

New Deal Witch Hunt

What an Honest Conversation about Race Would Look Like

French Liberalism Meets Boston Anarchism

Rand Paul, Jack Hunter, and All That

Welcome to the Desert of Huckabee

Why Fight for King and Country?

Dry Humor

Climate Change Fear Mongering

Just Wondering

The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies: A New Era Begins

AMERICA: THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD

Readings in Revisionist History

Why Coolidge Matters

Op-ed: Bangladeshi Workers Need Freed Markets

Glenn Greenwald Tries to Educate Bill Maher on Blowback, Benghazi and Other Issues

The Subversive Implications of the Fugitive

The Continuing Relevance of Philip K. Dick

The Koch Brothers

The Stooges v. Japanese Internment Escapees