Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

TGIF: Double-Rigging of the Auto Market

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 17, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

U.S. government interference with our lives often resembles a Russian matryoshka doll: regulation is nested in more regulation. Take the provision of Biden's pending Build Back Better bill that would create a big tax credit for people who buy U.S.-built electric vehicles (EV). Not only would the government distort the domestic auto market by rigging it in favor of electric vehicles over conventional ones, but it also would rig the EV market, Trump-style, in favor of U.S.-made products. This implies that "foreign" EVs are so attractive to American buyers that the domestic offerings need help...

TGIF: Joe Biden, Let’s Not Go to War

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 10, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Here's a good idea: let's not go to war against Russia. Let's not even rattle a saber at Russia (or China, for that matter) because even wars that no one really wants can be blundered into. Many losers would be left in the aftermath, even if nuclear weapons were kept out of sight, but no one would win. So as that smart Defense Department computer says in the 1983 movie WarGames, "The only winning move is not to play." The crisis du jour is Ukraine; before that, it was Georgia, both former Soviet republics. For some inexplicable reason, Russia's rulers get nervous when the U.S. foreign policy...

TGIF: Safety in Freedom

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 3, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

With the emergence of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, renewed restrictions on liberty or calls for their reinstatement have broken out around the world. The new wave is probably only beginning, and with it will surely come sermons on how we must face trade-offs between liberty and safety. This seems to be the new normal. The usual justifications for this purported necessity always feel inadequate, with gaping holes in the case for expanding government power to extraordinary lengths. Since we all now have a good deal of experience with COVID under our belts, let's hope that the public's doubts...

TGIF: Racial Polarization Is Poison

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 26, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Be they "left" or "right," those who agitate for racial polarization seem to have no sense of the harm they could do to everyone in our society. As the wise Glenn Loury would say, they are playing with fire. By polarization, of any kind, I mean more than merely a vigorous disagreement over issues or even basic principles. That's fine. Rather, I mean something dogmatic, obsessive, and fanatical, in which virtually everything in the world is seen through a single lens and everyone is expected to act and speak in a certain way, with stern consequences for the noncompliant. It can happen in...

“Coming to Palestine” Discussed on Podcast

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 23, 2021 | Blog, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism

I discussed my Libertarian Institute book Coming to Palestine on the podcast The Enragés (a project under the auspices of the Center for a Stateless Society).

TGIF: Rigged Political Language

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 19, 2021 | Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

It's an old trick: gain advantage over others by hiding one's meaning behind euphemisms and other forms of linguistic camouflage and misdirection. People do this in all walks of life, but politicians make careers of it. If they engage in straight talk at all, it is by far the exception. The journalist Michael Kinsley defined a gaffe as "when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." Obfuscation is the currency of politics. Little has changed since Oscar Wilde's time: "Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.” Libertarians have emphasized this scam...

TGIF: Equal Rights Now!

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 12, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

A pet peeve of mine is the distinction, drawn even by some market enthusiasts, between so-called personal liberty (or civil liberties) and economic liberty. The former, which usually includes freedom of conscience and religion, speech, and press, is thought to be noble and spiritual, while the latter, related to commerce and the pursuit of wealth, is held to be vulgar and materialistic. This has its roots in the thinking of the ancients. The distinction thrills the hearts of those who disparage markets and "economic freedom," Pro-market thinkers use the distinction for understandable...

TGIF: Another Climate Conference

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 5, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Sometimes we've got to be grateful for hypocrisy. If those who pretend to be world leaders actually delivered a fraction of what they promise in Glasgow, Scotland, where the UN's COP26 (Conference of Parties) Conference on Climate Change runs through Nov. 12, we'd be far bigger trouble than we already are. You know how these things go. Power-loving, sanctimonious politicians and their minions pontificate (for 12 days!?) on how the world will end in 20 minutes unless they force their subjects to behave in ways they don't wish to behave and to spend trillions of dollars they would rather keep....