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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Let's start with what is not wrong with the welfare state. Much criticism of the welfare state focuses on how it encourages dependence not only on the government, but dependence on others per se. In some circles the wish for a social safety net is disparaged as a...
If you had set out to construct a foreign policy designed to impose indescribable suffering on millions of innocent people around the world, you'd have a tough time coming up with anything more systematic and effective than U.S. foreign policy. An inventory of U.S....
You don't have to actually think that legislating and raising the minimum wage will help low-skilled workers earn more money. That's not the point. The point is to display your correct political religion. Today favoring stepping the minimum wage up to $15 an hour is...
