Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

Abolish the Corporation Tax and All Other Taxes on Investment

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 12, 2025 | Blog, Economics, Justice

Corporate taxes and other taxes on investment constitute double and sometimes triple taxation. That's more unjust than taxation of labor or consumption. Businesses can't pay taxes; only people can. But who pays business taxes need bear no relation to whom the lawmakers targeted. The corporate tax has been known to reduce wages and dividends (to retirees of moderate wealth) and indirectly to increase prices to consumers. How's that help anyone? Capital accumulation is what raises labor productivity and wages. Thus, taxes on capital steal from workers, among others. As economist Roy Cordato...

TGIF: Envy, Ignorance, Barbarism Triumph in New York

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 7, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's mayoral victory in New York City is a triumph of moral barbarism, economic illiteracy, illogic, and just plain envy. Mamdani's campaign had a double pitch: billionaires should not exist, and "the people" deserve free stuff. At first I thought his supporters did not understand the old free-market meme, TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Nature provides only raw materials, which are useless in their original state. Ingenuity turns them into resources. But then I realized that while Mamdani used the word free, he also said he would get...

TGIF: Separating Powers

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 31, 2025 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

We may be sure that the "separation of powers" doctrine is of no interest to the vulgar egotist currently residing in the White House, which happens to be undergoing the most glorious renovation the world has ever known. Or so we hear. But it stands to reason that the doctrine is vital to personal liberty. No imagination is needed to understand what concentrated political power is likely to mean for the individual and society. The name most closely associated with the separation of powers is Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755), a judge, philosopher, and...

TGIF: The Libertarian Apostle of Peace

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 24, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: The Absurdity of Democracy

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 17, 2025 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: Hooked on the State

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 10, 2025 | Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

TGIF: Free Movement Increases Wealth

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 3, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

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...

The Great Enrichment Is Real

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 28, 2025 | Blog, Economics, History

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...