Just when we are reminded that unnecessary conflict between the police and the people, especially in poorer black communities, is a poison to be eliminated forthwith, the Biden administration has moved in the wrong direction. Late last month the administration...
Sheldon Richman
TGIF: A Refreshing Way to Think about Immigration
by Sheldon Richman | May 7, 2021 | Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
What I'm going to say about Chandran Kukathas's latest book, Immigration and Freedom, does not constitute a book review. Think of it instead as a book alert. Even having read only the preface and a couple of chapters, I am confident it is a book that fans of liberty...

TGIF: Bust the Conservative “Trust Busters”
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 30, 2021 | Economics, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
When right-wing leader Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently declared that "liberty and monopoly do not go together," I fantasized that he had become a free-market anarchist. When I hear monopoly, I think government because what's the most literal of monopolies (or source...

TGIF: Does Nearly Everyone Favor Industrial Policy?
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 23, 2021 | Economics, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Over the years I've heard countless arguments about which word best describes the American economic system. Some insist it is essentially socialist, while others favor the word fascism. (Fascism is socialism with a private-property and market veneer.) Still others...

TGIF: Are Organizations Unlibertarian?
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 16, 2021 | Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
A few weeks ago YouTube suggested that I watch a 1988 episode of William F. Buckley's PBS TV show, "Firing Line," featuring Ron Paul, who at the time was the Libertarian Party candidate for president. I had to chuckle right at the top when Buckley introduced Rep. Paul...
TGIF: The Fraught World of Second-Bests
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 9, 2021 | Economics, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
When discussion turns to how to make government "better," however any particular person would conceive that condition, libertarians understand that we are in the fraught world of second-bests. In other words, because of the nature of the state, no solution that merely...
TGIF: Targeted Advertising Violates No Liberty
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 2, 2021 | Economics, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Last week I modestly attempted to show that no injustice takes place when A sells B the opportunity to pitch its product to C. This is the principle behind print, television, and radio advertising, and it is no different in the era of social networks like Facebook. In...
TGIF: The Bias against Advertising
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 26, 2021 | Sheldon Richman, TGIF
People who dislike markets harbor a special animosity toward advertising as cynically controlling. This is not new. In the mid-20th century John Kenneth Galbraith and other market opponents condemned advertising as business's way to manipulate people into buying...