Don't get accustomed to me praising Donald Trump, but exceptions will occur now and then. Trump is no principled friend of liberty, not by a long shot. Judging by most of his actions and words, he recognizes no impenetrable boundary between the government and the...
Sheldon Richman
TGIF: Birthright Citizenship and the Constitution
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 31, 2025 | Featured, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.... —U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV Donald Trump says he wants a "revolution of common sense." If he means it, he will abandon his...
TGIF: Why McKinley?
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 24, 2025 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Now what will hasten the day when our present advantages will wear out and when we shall come down to the conditions of the older and densely populated nations? The answer is: war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and...
TGIF: The H-1B Controversy
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 17, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Does anyone still believe that the market process should set prices, including wages? Apparently not. Take the controversy surrounding the H-1B visa, the program that "permits" employers to hire highly educated and skilled foreign workers, such as hi-tech personnel....
TGIF: Efficient Bureaucracy?
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 10, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
With all the talk about government efficiency, it would be useful to remind ourselves why bureaucracies differ radically from for-profit businesses. Ludwig von Mises devoted a short but enlightening volume to this subject in 1944, Bureaucracy. Elon Musk and Vivek...
TGIF: Capitalist Exploitation or Interest?
by Sheldon Richman | Jan 3, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The completely just proposition that the worker is to receive the entire value of his product can be reasonably interpreted to mean either that he is to receive the full present value of his product now or that he is to get the entire future value in the future. But...
TGIF: Social Cooperation Versus Violence
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 27, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The chilling photo of a hooded man cold-bloodedly executing a health-insurance CEO on a busy New York City street should make any decent person pause and reflect. Anyone who even glimpses the role of social cooperation in making life better and longer felt sickened,...
TGIF: The Unfortunately Forgotten Sumner
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 20, 2024 | Economics, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Some things haven't changed since 1883. In that year Yale University professor William Graham Sumner, the anti-imperialist laissez-faire liberal and pioneer of American sociology, noticed that "we are told every day that great social problems stand before us and...