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The Goal Is Freedom: Those Too-Consistent Libertarians
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, January 18, 2008The writer Michael Kinsley is very intelligent. He is also very glib, and his glibness often gets in the way of his intelligence. The expression “too clever by half” seems to have been coined for him. This is most obvious when he writes about the libertarian philosophy, as he did recently for the Washington Post website. More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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Paul Krugman, Doctor of (Bad) Economics
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, January 4, 2008Paul Krugman, the New York Times op-ed writer, has a Ph.D. in economics. Those three magic letters give him an air of authority, as if they represent a valuable accomplishment, yet somehow he manages to consistently give bad economic advice in his twice-weekly column. Go figure.
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Real Liberalism and the Law of Nature
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, August 10, 2007Is government the source of our rights? I fear that today many people would say yes. Not infrequently it is said that the government or the Constitution grants us freedom of speech or press or the right to own property. This offends the natural-law tradition that was essential to the genesis of classical liberalism (“liberalism”) and the vital institutions it spawned. While some prominent early liberals sought to overthrow natural law in favor of the seemingly more-scientific utilitarianism, the heart and soul of liberalism is — and remains — the natural law. The philosophy would be impoverished without it. More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman -
No Substitute for History
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, August 3, 2007The great economist Ludwig von Mises showed that economics can be deduced from the axiom that human beings act: individuals consciously select ends and apply scarce means to achieve them. By examining the logical implications of that undeniable fact, one can come to understand the concepts value, cost, time preference, supply, demand, money, price, profit, interest, and so on. In light of this, it is noteworthy that Mises was also an accomplished historian. And more than that, he was an important historiographer; that is, he was interested in the why and how of history. This theorist who is so identified with the a priori method in economics also believed that a knowledge of history and its methods was indispensable to understanding the world. More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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The Goal Is Freedom: Laissez-Faire Anti-Imperialism
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, July 27, 2007[E]xpansion and imperialism are at war with the best traditions, principles, and interests of the American people, and that they will plunge us into a network of difficult problems and political perils, which we might have avoided, while they offer us no corresponding advantage in return.
These might be the sentiments of a contemporary left-wing intellectual whose notion of America's traditions, principles, and interests would differ markedly from those held by advocates of the freedom philosophy. But they're not. They were written 108 years ago by William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), who, if he gets any attention at all, is usually castigated for his evolutionary (Social Darwinist) and laissez-faire views. Sumner, a founder of American sociology and a distinguished professor at Yale University, was an uncompromising champion of economic freedom, unfettered international trade, individual liberty, and limited government. It is fair to say that in his time he was the best-known American exponent of individualist, classical-liberal ideas. More . . .
A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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Tax Tyranny
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, July 6, 2007If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes. I hear that's what they say in the Rocky Mountains. I'd like to propose an addendum: If you do like a federal court's tax ruling, wait 11 months. Last August a three-judge panel of the influential U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stunningly declared a section of the Internal Revenue Code unconstitutional because it permitted the taxation of money that should not be considered income. Now those judges have changed their minds, ruling essentially that Congress can tax anything it wants. Then again, we already knew that. More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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The Goal Is Freedom: Tax Tyranny
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Sheldon Richman |If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes. I hear that's what they say in the Rocky Mountains. I'd like to propose an addendum: If you do like a federal court's tax ruling, wait 11 months. Last August a three-judge panel of the influential U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stunningly declared a section of the Internal Revenue Code unconstitutional because it permitted the taxation of money that should not be considered income. Now those judges have changed their minds, ruling essentially that Congress can tax anything it wants. Then again, we already knew that. More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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Illiberal Means, Illiberal Ends
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, June 8, 2007The years 1914-1918 must have been lonely for Randolph Bourne. Bourne was a popular writer in Progressive circles, prolifically turning out articles for The New Republic and Seven Arts magazines. But soon the former, along with other publications, lost interest in his writing and the latter ceased operations, leaving Bourne out in the cold. What happened? Bourne bucked his fellow intellectuals, including his mentor John Dewey, and opposed U.S. entry into World War I. More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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Progressive Illiberalism
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Sheldon Richman | Friday, April 20, 2007“The Progressive movement, which dominated the American scene in the years from the turn of the century to United State entrance in World War I, was not primarily a liberal movement,” writes Arthur A. Ekirch Jr. in his magisterial work The Decline of American Liberalism. “[I]n contrast to former American efforts at reform, progressivism was based on a new philosophy, partly borrowed from Europe, which emphasized collective action through the instrumentality of government.” More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
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The Goal Is Freedom: Progressive Illiberalism
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Sheldon Richman |“The Progressive movement, which dominated the American scene in the years from the turn of the century to United State entrance in World War I, was not primarily a liberal movement,” writes Arthur A. Ekirch Jr. in his magisterial work The Decline of American Liberalism. “[I]n contrast to former American efforts at reform, progressivism was based on a new philosophy, partly borrowed from Europe, which emphasized collective action through the instrumentality of government.” More . . .A NEW article by Sheldon Richman