Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute

Which Came First: The Individual or the Group?

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 2, 2025 | Blog, Economics

"It is illusory to believe that it is possible to visualize collective wholes. They are never visible; their cognition is always the outcome of the understanding of the meaning which acting men attribute to their acts. We can see a crowd, i.e., a multitude of people. Whether this crowd is a mere gathering or a mass (in the sense in which this term is used in contemporary psychology) or an organized body or any other kind of social entity is a question which can only be answered by understanding the meaning which they themselves attach to their presence. And this meaning is always the meaning...

The Socialist Spirit

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 1, 2025 | Blog, Economics

"Of course, not Marxists alone, but most of those who emphatically declare themselves anti-Marxists, think entirely on Marxist lines and have adopted Marx’s arbitrary, unconfirmed and easily refutable dogmas. If and when they come into power, they govern and work entirely in the socialist spirit." —Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Preface to 2nd German edition

Production for Profit Is Production for People, part 2

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 31, 2024 | Blog, Economics

"In his capacity as a businessman a man is a servant of the consumers, bound to comply with their wishes. He cannot indulge in his own whims and fancies. But his customers’ whims and fancies are for him ultimate law, provided these customers are ready to pay for them. He is under the necessity of adjusting his conduct to the demand of the consumers. If the consumers, without a taste for the beautiful, prefer things ugly and vulgar, he must, contrary to his own convictions, supply them with such things. If consumers do not want to pay a higher price for domestic products than for those...

Production for Profit Is Production for People

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 30, 2024 | Blog, Economics

"Profit and loss can be expressed in definite amounts of money. It is possible to ascertain in terms of money how much an individual has profited or lost. However, this is not a statement about this individual’s psychic profit or loss. It is a statement about a social phenomenon, about the individual’s contribution to the societal effort as it is appraised by the other members of society. It does not tell us anything about the individual’s increase or decrease in satisfaction or happiness. It merely reflects his fellow men’s evaluation of his contribution to social cooperation. This...

Pseudo-Liberalism

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 29, 2024 | Blog, Economics

"The detractors of liberty are in this sense right in calling it a 'bourgeois' issue and in blaming the rights guaranteeing liberty for being negative. In the realm of state and government, liberty means restraint imposed upon the exercise of the police power. "There would be no need to dwell upon this obvious fact if the champions of the abolition of liberty had not purposely brought about a semantic confusion. They realized that it was hopeless for them to fight openly and sincerely for restraint and servitude. The notions liberty and freedom had such prestige that no propaganda could...

Freedom and Competition

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 28, 2024 | Blog, Economics

"The freedom of man under capitalism is an effect of competition. The worker does not depend on the good graces of an employer. If his employer discharges him, he finds another employer. The consumer is not at the mercy of the shopkeeper. He is free to patronize another shop if he likes. Nobody must kiss other people’s hands or fear their disfavor. Interpersonal relations are businesslike. the exchange of goods and services is mutual; it is not a favor to sell or to buy, it is a transaction dictated by selfishness on either side. "It is true that in his capacity as a producer every man...

“Mature Capitalism” Ain’t Capitalism

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 27, 2024 | Blog, Economics

"It would be correct to describe this state of affairs in this way: Today many or some groups of business are no longer liberal; they do not advocate a pure market economy and free enterprise, but, on the contrary, are asking for various measures of government interference with business. But it is entirely misleading to say that the meaning of the concept of capitalism has changed and that 'mature capitalism'—as the American Institutionalists call it—or 'late capitalism'—as the Marxians call it—is characterized by restrictive policies to protect the vested interests of wage earners, farmers,...

TGIF: Social Cooperation Versus Violence

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 27, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

The chilling photo of a hooded man cold-bloodedly executing a health-insurance CEO on a busy New York City street should make any decent person pause and reflect. Anyone who even glimpses the role of social cooperation in making life better and longer felt sickened, or should have. Nothing can justify what the perpetrator did. That so many people see him as a vengeful hero acting in defense of the downtrodden is appalling. One can only hope they will soon come to their senses. At the risk of taking our eye off the crime, it's worth pointing out that all departures from the market...