Dan Sanchez | The Libertarian Institute

Trade Is What Makes Us Human

by Dan Sanchez | Aug 30, 2017 | Featured Articles

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith famously wrote of humanity’s “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” Smith noted that trade is a characteristic mark that distinguishes humankind from all other creatures: “It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. (…) Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing...

The Sweet Sociability of Self-Interest

by Dan Sanchez | Jun 27, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism

undreds of liberty-loving students, professionals, and entrepreneurs recently gathered in Atlanta for the first-ever FEEcon, an event celebrating the ideas of freedom and free enterprise. Judging from attendee feedback, it was a smashing success. But it raises an interesting question. A skeptic might ask, “Isn’t a gathering of individualists a contradiction in terms?” Such a critic might have been even more flabbergasted had he attended. The conference was successful, not only because of meticulous planning (perhaps another shocking word in this context), but because of the communal spirit...

Is ‘Wonder Woman’ War Propaganda?

by Dan Sanchez | Jun 9, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Why did human beings slaughter each other by the thousands during World War I, a conflict of unprecedented mass savagery in which an entire generation of young men decimated itself and inflicted atrocities on civilian populations full of women, children, and the elderly? In the movie Wonder Woman, the heroic Amazon princess Diana believes that an evil god is to blame. Ares, god of war, is the son of Zeus, king of the gods and creator of the human race. Ares loathes his father’s creatures and throughout history has striven to eradicate them by pitting humankind against itself in ceaseless,...

Trump’s Ego Is Actually Too Small

by Dan Sanchez | May 10, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Long before Donald Trump became a controversial political figure, he was a household name famous for his phenomenal ego. He first rose to fame as a larger-than-life real estate tycoon. By cultivating the media, Trump became the poster boy for the gilded, go-go 80s: a brash, ostentatious capitalist antihero who plastered his name on skyscrapers, plazas, hotels, casinos, and resorts. At one point he even sought to rename the Empire State Building after himself, calling it the Trump Empire State Building Tower Apartments. And in the 2000s, with his hit reality show The Apprentice, he became the...

Trump Surrenders to the Iron Law of Oligarchy

by Dan Sanchez | May 2, 2017 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Did the Deep State deep-six Trump’s populist revolution? Many observers, especially among his fans, suspect that the seemingly untamable Trump has already been housebroken by the Washington, “globalist” establishment. If true, the downfall of Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the new presidency may have been a warning sign. And the turning point would have been the removal of Steven K. Bannon from the National Security Council on April 5. Until then, the presidency’s early policies had a recognizably populist-nationalist orientation. During his...

Today’s Civil Strife Is Rooted in Economic Frustration and Fallacy

by Dan Sanchez | Apr 28, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles

Why is America today so politically charged and polarized, to the point that people are regularly clashing in the streets? As James Carville used to say, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Americans still haven’t got their economic mojo back since the financial/housing crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2009. And today’s public agitation is largely an extension of the protest movements that emerged in the wake of that downturn. On the right, the Tea Party movement arose in 2009 largely out of disgust that big banks and big business had been bailed out by big government with newly printed money,...

The Non-Battle of Auburn Was a True Victory for Liberty

by Dan Sanchez | Apr 24, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Auburn, Alabama is nicknamed “the loveliest village on the plains.” But ugliness threatened to descend on it last Tuesday when outsiders came looking for a fight. Thankfully, residents and Auburn University students refused to oblige, much to their honor and wisdom. The occasion was a speech on campus by white-nationalist provocateur Richard Spencer. Spencer’s representatives had booked the space ahead of time, but the university tried to rescind. Spencer intended to deliver the speech anyway, but a federal court settled the matter by forcing the school to fulfill the contract on First...

The “Battle of Berkeley” Is a Bad Sign for Liberty

by Dan Sanchez | Apr 20, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Just how close are we to repeating the political violence of interwar Germany? How bad is it, and how bad can it get? Populist-right demonstrators and radical-left protesters clashed in Berkeley, California yesterday. The belligerents used such weapons as fists, feet, rocks, pepper spray, smoke bombs, barricades, and a trash dumpster/battering ram. There was one reported non-lethal stabbing. Arrayed on the right were members of the Alt-Right, Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, and non-affiliated Trump supporters, and the left was led by Antifa (Anti-Fascist Action) and BAMN (“By Any Means Necessary”)....