Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

TGIF: Watch the Forest as Well as the Trees

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 9, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

It's always important not to miss the forest for the trees. U.S. government announcements, such as its report of the turnover to the Afghan government of the seventh and last military base in Afghanistan, Bagram, should lead no one to think that U.S. foreign policy has changed worldwide or even in that particular region. Far from it. This is true even if virtually all U.S. troops, except for 600 military personnel, most of them left to guard the U.S. embassy, have left Afghanistan, as reported by Politico. (Who knows what the special operations forces will be up to?) White House spokesperson...

Appearance on the Noah Blaylock Show

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 3, 2021 | Blog

I was a guest on the Noah Blaylock Show for a discussion of education and the consequences of government control of schooling. Listen to the podcast here.

TGIF: Defend the Enlightenment!

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 2, 2021 | Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

The libertarian philosophy is embedded in Enlightenment liberalism. This is clearly seen in its commitment to free inquiry (reason) and free speech, the full realization of which, I argue, requires complete respect for individual rights, including property rights. Unfortunately we live at a time when those values are increasingly under assault from from a variety intellectuals and activists despite political and cultural differences among themselves. We hear prominent people ask--and it's really an assertion disguised as a question--whether free inquiry and free speech are really all they...

TGIF: Liberty as a Problem-Solving Process

by Sheldon Richman | Jun 25, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Strictly speaking, liberty isn't the solution to problems. It's what creates the framework in which solutions can be discovered. That is an important distinction because it reminds us that advocates of full-blown liberty do not offer the world a problem-free society but "only" a society in which problems are discovered and problem-solvers are mobilized as quickly, fairly, and efficiently as impossible. To get this point across to students in lectures, I used to quote the the title of a 1970 hit record: "I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden." Social troubles will not...

TGIF: Is “Free Election” an Oxymoron?

by Sheldon Richman | Jun 18, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

American leaders and their loyal media pundits love to sit in judgment of other countries' election, declaring them fair or rigged according to their seemingly meticulous standards. In fact, the real standard is that the regimes "we" like hold free and fair (enough) elections, while the regimes "we" dislike don't. What about regimes "we" like that hold no national elections at all, like Saudi Arabia? They are forgotten whenever the loveliness of democracy is the topic of discussion. Maybe a broader approach would shed light on the matter. We could ask: does any country have really free and...

Richman Talks Israel-Palestine on Decentralized Revolution

by Sheldon Richman | Jun 16, 2021 | Blog

I discussed Israel-Palestine with Aaron Harris on the Mises Caucus's Decentralized Revolution podcast. Watch and listen here.

TGIF: VP Harris Tells Guatemalans to Stay in Their Place

by Sheldon Richman | Jun 11, 2021 | Economics, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Shame on Vice President Kamala Harris. On her recent trip to Guatemala she said, "I want to be clear to folks in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come. I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back.” This is what passes for sensitivity to human rights in the post-Trump era. It's the same attitude that marked not only the Trump years but also the pre-Trump era under Barack Obama, the deporter-in-chief, and Joe Biden. Notice Harris mentioned the "dangerous trek" without acknowledging that the U.S...

TGIF: What the State Really Is

by Sheldon Richman | Jun 4, 2021 | Economics, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

To better understand the nature of government, one can think of it as an agency that sells or, more precisely, rents power to others. The greater the power and the wider its scope, the more opportunities the state's agents will have to sell access to it in return for favors. Of course the demand for that power will also be greater. This stands to reason. If the government is allowed to make many important decisions about private activity, people will want to influence or control that decision-making--and they'll be willing to pay for that influence as long as the price is less than the...