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TGIF: Election Reflections

TGIF: Election Reflections

by | Nov 1, 2024 | , , , , , ,

The history of the human race is one long story of attempts by certain persons and classes to obtain control of the power of the State, so as to win earthly gratifications at the expense of others. --William Graham Sumner, 1883 For advocates of individual liberty, this has got to be the most depressing election in many years. (Well, at least since 2020, the most depressing election since 2016.) Full, true, laissez-faire liberalism is far from public discussion. Kamala Harris ("I'm smart and I care"), the mush-mouthed empty suit, and Donald Trump ("I'm Trump!"), the narcissistic, militantly...

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TGIF: Happy Halloween, Traders!

TGIF: Happy Halloween, Traders!

by | Oct 25, 2024 | , , ,

It's the Halloween season, the perfect occasion to introduce your young children and grandchildren to the wonders of the market economy. After all, the market is a process in which individuals strive to improve their situations through trade—that is, lucrative peaceful cooperation—with others. (Today we'll ignore all the ways politicians and bureaucrats get in the way.) As a result of their trick-or-treating, children will bring home a vast quantity and variety of candies. Of course, not all kids (or adults) like the same kind of treats. While that could bring disappointment for some...

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TGIF: Socialism Is War by Other Means

TGIF: Socialism Is War by Other Means

by | Oct 18, 2024 | , , , , ,

Readers may have wondered about a quote I used from Ludwig von Mises recently. In his book Liberalism Mises distinguished the (classical) liberal case against war from what he called the "humanitarian" case against war. To understand Mises, let's examine a "humanitarian" on the war question: philosopher, psychologist, and eugenicist William James (1842-1910). Is it relevant to the largely illiberal antiwar movement today? Let's see. Whether Mises was thinking of James when the great economist wrote the "peace" section of Liberalism (1926), I cannot say. He may well have. James had given a...

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Blaming Freedom

by | Oct 17, 2024 | ,

Freedom is nearly always blamed for the bad consequences of unfreedom, that is, of government intervention. Take immigration. We hear these days that migrant gangs are killing, terrorizing, and stealing from Americans. Some immigrants without government papers have definitely committed heinous crimes. Opponents of immigration say that migrants join violent migrant gangs to pay off debts incurred in the process of traveling to the United States. If that's true, we can see that it's not freedom that leads to crime, but rather the black market. Black markets by definition are products of...

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The Soul of a Socialist

by | Oct 12, 2024 | , ,

From the pen of H. G. Wells (1908), socialist: War is a collective concern; to turn one’s back upon it, to refuse to consider it as a possibility, is to leave it entirely to those who are least prepared to deal with it in a broad spirit. In many ways war is the most socialistic of all forces. In many ways military organization is the most peaceful of activities. When the contemporary man steps from the street, of clamorous insincere advertisement, push, adulteration, underselling and intermittent employment into the barrack-yard, he steps on to a higher social plane, into an atmosphere of...

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TGIF: Full versus Shrunken Liberalism

TGIF: Full versus Shrunken Liberalism

by | Oct 11, 2024 | , , , , , , , ,

Language, like the old common law and other customs, is a decentralized, undesigned, spontaneous institution. It serves humanity well. Nothing is perfect, of course, but no alternative—if one were conceivable—could hold a candle to it. One of the downsides is that people may change how they use handy expressions; more wordy phrases may be needed to replace a "corrupted" one. Here's one: classical liberal. Liberal, of course, originally related to individual liberty and its conditions and consequences: private property, constraints on government power, and free markets. It still means...

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