A pet peeve of mine is the distinction, drawn even by some market enthusiasts, between so-called personal liberty (or civil liberties) and economic liberty. The former, which usually includes freedom of conscience and religion, speech, and press, is thought to be...
Sheldon Richman
TGIF: Another Climate Conference
by Sheldon Richman | Nov 5, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Sometimes we've got to be grateful for hypocrisy. If those who pretend to be world leaders actually delivered a fraction of what they promise in Glasgow, Scotland, where the UN's COP26 (Conference of Parties) Conference on Climate Change runs through Nov. 12, we'd be...
TGIF: The Challenging Art of Persuasion
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 29, 2021 | Featured Articles, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Anyone who hopes for a peaceful pro-liberty intellectual revolution is interested in the art of persuasion. But is it a practical art? Can enough people be persuaded to abandon long-held anti-liberty views for something quite different? I'm assuming here that one...
TGIF: That Bloody Government Debt
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 22, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The government's attraction to borrowing is hardly a mystery. If the politicians had to extract every dollar they wanted to spend directly from the taxpayers, they might have a revolt on their hands--a bad career move for sure. Borrowing tends to make people more...
TGIF: Inflation Is Evil
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 15, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
When will Americans demand that the government denationalize money and free the market to do what it does better than anything else: serve the general welfare rather than the special interests? It's hard to know what it would take to bring this about, but inflation...
TGIF: Looking for the Green New Deal
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 8, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I was all set this week to plunge into the details of the Green New Deal so I could see what new impositions the climate-alarmist politicians have in store for us. Then I made a startling discovery. (Startling for me, that is. I'm behind the news curve.) The Green New...
TGIF: Why “Science Denial”?
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 1, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
In a new book two professors of psychology, Gale Sinatra and Barbara Hofer, seek to explain why what they call "science denial" is rampant today and how dangerous it is. They also give their account in a strange conversation with Michael Shermer, the editor of...
TGIF: Beware the Government-“Science” Complex
by Sheldon Richman | Sep 24, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The government-"science" complex ostensibly promotes the search for facts about our world, but it actually promotes and enforces orthodoxy, protects resulting paradigms, and manufactures apparent consensuses that are questioned only at one's reputational peril. That's...