TGIF: The Libertarian Apostle of Peace

TGIF: The Libertarian Apostle of Peace

by | Oct 24, 2025 | , , ,

With Donald Trump furiously, ineptly, and fraudulently campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, it may interest liberals—the classical variety, libertarians—to know that the first Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 1901, was shared by one of their own. This was a man who espoused the same political-economic philosophy as his fellow Frenchman Frédéric Bastiat and Englishman Richard Cobden. Its pillars were freedom, unrestricted trade, and peace. That man was Frédéric Passy (1822-1912). Passy shared the prize with Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross and originator of...

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TGIF: The Absurdity of Democracy

TGIF: The Absurdity of Democracy

by | Oct 17, 2025 | , , , , ,

If the continuing incompetence of Congress over passing a budget and reopening the U.S. government doesn't show the absurdity of unlimited representative republicanism, what could do so? Whether or not to extend COVID-era special subsidies for medical insurance appears to be the main issue, but other issues are undoubtedly involved. If it isn't one thing, it's another. That's politics. The problem is that the government has its hands in everything. That means a constituency exists for each thing the government does. If you want to upset and mobilize a group of people, call for an end to some...

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TGIF: Hooked on the State

TGIF: Hooked on the State

by | Oct 10, 2025 | , , ,

Since the government partial shutdown began, we've been seeing panicked headlines about states being denied federal money for promised or already-started energy and infrastructure projects. Other sorts of subsidies are also in jeopardy. You'd think that not getting money from Washington was the worst thing that could happen. Oh my goodness, federalism might be breaking out! Unfortunately, we can be sure that no restoration is in the works. We are not about to return to the long-gone world in which the national government had few powers and the people of the 50 states grappled with...

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TGIF: Free Movement Increases Wealth

TGIF: Free Movement Increases Wealth

by | Oct 3, 2025 | , , ,

In a recent interview with Nathan Goodman of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Professor Michael Clemens, a GMU specialist in migration economics, put forth "a strange and striking fact about the world economy." A lower-skilled person's location in the world can make a significant difference in how much wealth he creates, not just for himself but for society in general. According to Clemens, few people appreciate that, say, a poor shoeshiner in Haiti could earn far more money doing the same work in a wealthy American city because his customers, who are rich by world and...

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The Great Enrichment Is Real

by | Sep 28, 2025 | , ,

From about 1800 to the present the world's economy did something good, which looks to be permanent and looks to be justified. If contrary to the evidence we cling to our prejudices about economic history—our view that the Industrial Revolution was improverishng, or that the Grteat Enrichment was an irremediable environmental disaster, or that Europe is rich only because of poverty in the Third World, or that the new rich are always getting relatively richer, or that after all any enrichment is vulgar—we will mistake how we got here and will give mistaken advice on how to move forward. We...

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TGIF: Trump Fibbed about Favoring Free Speech

TGIF: Trump Fibbed about Favoring Free Speech

by | Sep 26, 2025 | , , , ,

Trump fibbed when he signed his first executive order in January, the one that promised never to repeat the Biden-era barriers to free speech. Everyone knows this by now. FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) summed it up well, yet only scratched the surface: "We cannot be a country where late night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president." The Maestro dislikes being criticized, and he regularly displays his willingness to use government power to get revenge. We see this with his string of lawsuits against newspapers and networks for being "unfair" and...

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TGIF: Social Peace through Government Retrenchment

TGIF: Social Peace through Government Retrenchment

by | Sep 19, 2025 | , , , , , ,

For at least 200 years, classical liberals (aka libertarians) have warned that the more power the government wields, the greater the lengths people will go to get their hands on it before their ideological opponents do. This is not rocket science, yet resistance to the implications endures. If politicians and bureaucrats can readily confiscate wealth from its producers and distribute it to others, or if they can grant privileges to those they favor and impose restrictions on those they don't, you can bet that individuals and groups will work overtime for access to that power. That's a recipe...

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Mass Production Equals Mass Consumption

by | Sep 17, 2025 | ,

[R]elative shares in national income have remained substantially constant over the last hundred years. This, however, is true only if we measure them in money. Measured in real terms, relative shares have substantially changed in favor of the lower income groups. This follows from the fact that the capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably means also production for the masses.... Electric lighting is no great boon to anyone who has money enough to buy a sufficient number of candles and to pay servants to attend to them. It is the cheap cloth, the...

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