Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

TGIF: On Value and Freedom

by Sheldon Richman | May 2, 2025 | Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

To live is to act. To act is to choose. To choose is to prefer. To prefer is to pursue values—that is, to value. That's logic-guided observation. Ego sum, ergo aestimo: I am, therefore I value. (HT: Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and Ludwig von Mises.) Next: to think is to act. "[T]hinking itself [is] an action," Ludwig von Mises wrote in Human Action, "proceeding step by step from the less satisfactory state of insufficient cognizance to the more satisfactory state of better insight." Shortcut: to think is to value. (James Ellias of Inductica calls this the "value axiom.") Like it or not, we're...

Paine on War

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 25, 2025 | Blog

"It may with reason be said, that in the manner the English nation is represented, it signifies not where this right resides, whether in the Crown, or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditures. In reviewing the history of the English government, its wars and its taxes, a by-stander, not blinded by prejudice, nor warped by...

TGIF: More on Menger and Value

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 25, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Consumer goods are also called finished goods. The products we buy at the supermarket and other retail stores have, in less finished form, passed through many stages (including distribution), reaching back to the original factors of production: land and labor. Land includes anything nature-given and not produced. We think of those things as natural resources, but as Julian Simon taught us, it takes human ingenuity to convert nature-given stuff, which may have no apparent value for human well-being, into a resource that makes our lives better. (See Simon's invaluable The Ultimate Resource 2.)...

The Public-School Chickens Come Home Again

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 23, 2025 | Blog, Justice, Libertarianism

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether parents of children in government schools have a constitutional right to opt out of programs that "expose" their kids to LGBTQ materials. Once again, the chickens have come home to roost. By that, I mean that if politicians, bureaucrats, and elected boards did not run schools and force (tax) parents and nonparents to finance them, this problem could not arise. This should not be an issue for the political system, and you need not be an anarchist to see it. Free people are capable of educating or buying education for their...

TGIF: Menger on Trade

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 18, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Even when a line on a map separates two individuals, trade is still trade—that is, mutually beneficial cooperation. Whether the line separates towns, cities, counties, states, or countries, it does not matter. The transactions are win-win. We could do quite well without the categories of exports and imports. Adam Smith wisely said almost 250 years ago that the balance-of-trade doctrine was "absurd." In a sense, only two kinds of goods and services exist as far as I'm concerned: those that I produce and those that everyone else produces. That is true for you too. Countries don't trade....

TGIF: The Objectively Invaluable Menger

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 11, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Many people are uneasy with the free market. I think that's because they subscribe, implicitly if not explicitly, to the labor theory of value. Workers, people lament, seem not to reap the full and just reward for their labors. Belief in the labor theory puts adherents in good company. Adam Smith and his successor, David Ricardo, were labor theorists. Fédéric Bastiat held a variant of the labor theory. Of course, labor theorists are also in some bad company, like Karl Marx, a true enemy of the people in whose name hundreds of millions have been murdered. In fairness, it should be...

TGIF: The Great Carl Menger

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 4, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

There can be no doubt among competent historians that if ... the Austrian School has occupied an almost unique position in the development of economic science, this is entirely due to the foundations laid by this one man.... [I]ts fundamental ideas belong fully and wholly to [?].... [W]hat is common to the members of the Austrian School, what constitutes their peculiarity and provided the foundations for their later contributions is their acceptance of the teaching of [?]. —F. A. Hayek Who was Hayek writing about? Carl Menger, of course. Menger (1840-1921), a professor at the University of...

TGIF: “Liberalism and Capitalism”

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 28, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Ludwig von Mises's 1927 path-breaking work in political theory speaks to the current generations. In section 5 of his introduction to Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, Mises sounds impeccably relevant in describing how the opponents of liberalism and the market economy twist facts that are plainly before our eyes. You'll see how he refuted the absurd claim that capitalism serves only a tiny privileged and exploitative group. The work of most thinkers passes away soon after they do. Not so with Ludwig von Mises. He began the section by acknowledging what should be obvious. Governments have...

« Older Entries

TGIF: On Value and Freedom

Paine on War

TGIF: More on Menger and Value

The Public-School Chickens Come Home Again

TGIF: Menger on Trade

TGIF: The Objectively Invaluable Menger

TGIF: The Great Carl Menger

TGIF: “Liberalism and Capitalism”

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