Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

TGIF: “We Are All Social Engineers Now”

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 20, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

I don't know if anyone has actually said, "We are all social engineers now," but someone might as well have. (The variation "We are all Keynesians now" was declared a long time ago, even by Milton Friedman, although see this.) When I say "all," of course, I don't mean all. If you look hard enough, you'll find a few opponents of social engineering. But if you throw a dart into a crowd—don't try that at home—you'll most likely hit a social engineer. Most people think the government should do more than apprehend, try, and punish real criminals; maintain courts for peaceful dispute resolution;...

Foreign Interference

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 20, 2024 | Blog, Foreign Policy

People are being told to be alarmed about alleged foreign interference in the upcoming presidential election. Maybe they should be understanding rather than alarmed. The U.S. government conducts a wide-ranging interventionist foreign policy, which can substantially affect other countries. That has included frequent interference in elections and other political operations. So why wouldn't the governments there not only take an interest in U.S. elections but also perhaps attempt to exercise some influence over the voters? Much is at stake militarily and economically. American politicians used...

TGIF: The Russians Are Coming? The Russians Are Coming?

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 13, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. ―H. L. Mencken, In Defense of Women It is in Mencken's spirit that I would size up this announcement from the U.S. Justice Department, titled "Justice Department Disrupts Covert Russian Government-Sponsored Foreign Malign Influence Operation Targeting Audiences in the United...

TGIF: What Government Has Wrought

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 6, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Imagine two candidates for president, and ask yourself who is more likely to win. Candidate A observes that people are facing generally rising prices. Their total at the supermarket checkout is higher than last year. Filling up the car at the gas station takes a bigger bite out of the budget. Everything the kids need seems costlier. Besides all that, the prospect of buying a home or moving to a larger apartment looks grim—too expensive. Responding to this situation, Candidate A launches a campaign promising to defend the middle class and other working people against "corporate greed."...

TGIF: Doing Good at a Profit

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 30, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

[P]eople started to believe that the bourgeoisie and its economic activities of trade and innovation were virtuous, or at least tolerable. In every successful lurch into modern riches from Holland in 1650 to the United States in 1900 to China in 2000, one sees a startling revaluation in how people thought about exchange and innovation. "How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World" Art Carden and Deirdre Nansen McCloskey Perhaps it's time for another, similarly positive reevaluation of exchange and innovation. Heaven knows we need it. Our age features a distinct lack of appreciation of trade...

TGIF: Back to Barbarism

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 23, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Has Kamala Harris inadvertently done free-market advocates a favor? Let's not get too hopeful, but maybe. How so? By pandering to voters and marketing herself as a consumer watchdog who will stamp out (undefined) supermarket "price gouging." This could create teaching opportunities for champions of the unhampered market economy. This should be our message: Prices emerge from countless transactions through which people seeking mutual benefit trade their money for goods and vice versa. Monetary exchange, unlike the barter system that preceded it, permits the widest possible division of labor...

TGIF: Gaslighting

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 16, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

I wonder who's gaslighting us now. Here are some of the major perpetrators: The pundits and pseudo-economists of all tribes who try to convince us that the government can spend, borrow, and create money almost without limit or harm. What happens when interest on the national debt swallows up so much of the federal budget that little is left for anything else? The government isn't likely to close shop (too bad), so we ought to be discussing what desperate measures it and its dependents will resort to when the well dries up. The "labor advocates" who try to convince us that the government can...

TGIF: Khan Controlling Trade

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 9, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Lina Khan is a Washington, D.C., rock star. She is not only President Joe Biden's celebrated chief of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); she's also a favorite of J. D. Vance, Donald Trump's pick for vice president. This Lina Khan must really have something going for her—until you recall that Biden and Vance, and by implication Trump and Kamala Harris, reject individual freedom as an inseparable unity. In other words, personal freedom requires economic freedom and vice versa. What chance does freedom of speech and press have in a society without private property? Individual liberty in the...