Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

TGIF: Targeted Advertising Violates No Liberty

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 2, 2021 | Economics, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Last week I modestly attempted to show that no injustice takes place when A sells B the opportunity to pitch its product to C. This is the principle behind print, television, and radio advertising, and it is no different in the era of social networks like Facebook. In principle, the commercial act I've described is similar to many other commercial acts. Someone has a megaphone and rents it to someone else, who then uses it to convey product messages to others. Where's the objection? But this does not dispose of the matter because many people are bothered that the social networks collect...

TGIF: The Bias against Advertising

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 26, 2021 | Sheldon Richman, TGIF

People who dislike markets harbor a special animosity toward advertising as cynically controlling. This is not new. In the mid-20th century John Kenneth Galbraith and other market opponents condemned advertising as business's way to manipulate people into buying things they had no real need for and actually didn't want. To hear them tell it, the consumer is not an agent but a puppet, with advertisers as the puppet masters. This position was and is wrong--Galbraith and his colleagues, I suspect, did not think they were helpless buyers--and it was debunked by sensible people, including Israel...

My Appearance with Nate the Voluntaryist

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 22, 2021 | Blog, Economics, Libertarianism

Nate the Voluntaryist and I talked about free markets and capitalism on his podcast. Listen here.

TGIF: What’s Wrong with the Welfare State

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 19, 2021 | Economics, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Let's start with what is not wrong with the welfare state. Much criticism of the welfare state focuses on how it encourages dependence not only on the government, but dependence on others per se. In some circles the wish for a social safety net is disparaged as a moral flaw encouraged by people who want to subvert humanity in general and the original liberal, or libertarian, project in particular. The welfare state is said to clash with such alleged and desirable virtues as rugged individualism and radical self-reliance. In this view the welfare state robs human beings of their essential...

TGIF: U(nspeakably) S(adistic) Foreign Policy

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 12, 2021 | Economics, Foreign Policy, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

If you had set out to construct a foreign policy designed to impose indescribable suffering on millions of innocent people around the world, you'd have a tough time coming up with anything more systematic and effective than U.S. foreign policy. An inventory of U.S. direct military and covert operations, aid to savage governments and murderous "rebels," and economic sanctions would easily lead one to think that the architects of this constellation of policies aimed to inflict death and maximum pain on innocent bystanders. It has been one series of crimes against humanity. That would be an...

TGIF: That Old Minimum-Wage Magic

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 5, 2021 | Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

You don't have to actually think that legislating and raising the minimum wage will help low-skilled workers earn more money. That's not the point. The point is to display your correct political religion. Today favoring stepping the minimum wage up to $15 an hour is part of the so-called progressive dogma, or civic religion. Progressives who oppose $15 would likely have their credentials questioned or yanked. They would be branded heretics on Twitter. And religiously minded people, even if the religion is secular, rarely like heretics. They must be rooted out, shamed, and if possible,...

Individual, Not National, Self-Determination Should Be the Goal

by Sheldon Richman | Mar 5, 2021 | Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman

Jeff Halper, the American-born, Israel-based veteran human-rights activist is heroic. He has dedicated his life to working for justice for the Palestinian victims of Israeli settler colonialism, much of that as the director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. His new book, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State is the subject of a recent YouTube video, which I recommend to all who are interested in the struggle for freedom. As much as I admire Halper, I still must take issue with him and many others in...

Liberty Needs You!

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 18, 2021 | Blog, Libertarianism

In these bleak times, the cause of liberty needs you more than ever. A key way to help is to make a tax-deductible contribution to the Libertarian Institute, which for years has published important online articles about all aspects freedom and oppression on a daily basis and a series of not-to-be missed books, most recently Scott Horton's encyclopedic Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. If you want to understand U.S. foreign policy today and all its harmful implications for liberty, you need this book. And don't miss Scott's earlier book, Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in...