Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

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...

TGIF: What Now, Libertarians?

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 12, 2021 | Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

The prospects for individual liberty and the required rollback of the government seem as bleak as ever, but we can't let appearances, no matter how pervasive, be decisive. The spark within most people--the longing to chart one's course in life--never really dies. We've got to remember this as we search for new and innovative ways to make our case to an apparently uninterested public. But I admit that things don't look good. We might have expected the four-year circus presided over by Donald Trump to sour people on the very idea of government. I always thought that was an unrealistic...

TGIF: Imperial America, Which Never Left, Is Back

by Sheldon Richman | Feb 5, 2021 | Foreign Policy, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

In a cliche-ridden foreign-policy speech delivered at the State Department on Thursday, President Joe Biden declared that "America is back"--on the global stage, presumably, as policeman of the world, but certainly not a disinterested policeman. The problem is that it never left. Despite some uncouth rhetoric and regular New York Times headlines regarding "American isolationism," Donald Trump never withdrew the U.S. government from its meddling role in the world. He baited Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, and ended no war or U.S. assistance to other wars. Far from leaving NATO or...

A Defense of the Peaceful Transfer of War-Making Power

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 13, 2021 | Blog, Economics, Justice, Libertarianism

Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausevitz famously said that "war is a continuation of politics by other means." I think we can reverse this: politics is war by other means. The ultimate aim of politics (in the narrow sense of the word; there's a more elevated philosophical sense) is what Frederic Bastiat called "legal plunder." Other thinkers have elaborated this idea. Franz Oppenheimer's book The State comes to mind. Oppenheimer influenced Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, Murray Rothbard, and through them the modern libertarian movement. Oppenheimer distinguished work --...