Sheldon Richman

TGIF: Arms Sales and Democracy

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

The U.S. government's role as the world's premier arms donor and dealer is now under renewed scrutiny. I can't imagine why. But seriously... We may legitimately ask if this role fulfills democracy's promise of, in Lincoln's words, "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Or are we justified in concluding that with the government's arms distribution, democracy falls short of its promise even more so than it does in its other functions? This is something Chris Coyne of George Mason University and its Mercatus Center F. A. Hayek program spends a lot of time studying. In this...

TGIF: Bigotry versus Social Cooperation

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 17, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

We who value individualism, freedom, and social cooperation as essential to flourishing should be distressed by the hostile bigotry that has lately reared its ugly head, to some uncertain extent, on the streets and campuses of America and abroad. This is not new. In America we've seen it intermittently in both directions on racial issues just in this century. It seems related to an intolerant, zero-nuance, take-no-prisoners, and glib attitude among many contenders over racial, religious, and ethnic controversies. Now it is showing itself in ugly group chants and more personal communication...

TGIF: When History Didn’t Begin

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 10, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

I agree with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. I've never written those words before. But on Oct 24, Guterres said to the UN Security Council (emphasis added): The situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour. The war in Gaza is raging and risks spiralling throughout the region. Divisions are splintering societies. Tensions threaten to boil over. At a crucial moment like this, it is vital to be clear on principles -- starting with the fundamental principle of respecting and protecting civilians. I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October...

TGIF: The Glorious Bourgeois Peace Movement

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 3, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Those of us whose pro-peace/antiwar principles are of the bourgeois classical-liberal variety need reminding now and again that we have a glorious tradition going back hundreds of years. We need not get lost in the dominant rhetoric that opposes war, empire, and its deadly accouterments from a flawed anti-individualist, anti-Western, and socialist position. No, we can draw on a proud history of writers and activists who opposed war and intervention not just for the obvious reason -- harm to others -- but also because peace and nonintervention are required for reaping the full benefits of...

TGIF: Don’t Police the World

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 27, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

"We" -- to be precise, U.S. policymakers and their quasi-private-sector, tax-nourished enablers-beneficiaries-- must not police the world, become directly involved in wars, covertly assist belligerents, or act as arms merchants and bankers. The central government can't be a benign policeman, even if its intentions were as stated (which they may be): international rules-based order and economic stability. But it can wreak havoc by trying. We know this because it already has. Pick your start date, but the last 30 years present evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of what U.S.-sponsored "order"...

TGIF: Extend Tolerance to Commerce

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 20, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Perhaps you've noticed that we live in intolerant times. Many people claim to be endangered by the mere spoken or written expression of views on a range of issues. This has led to direct action to disrupt speakers on college campuses and elsewhere and to indirect government efforts to censor users of social media, which so far the courts have frowned on. Believe it or not, this has had a silver lining. It's elicited articulate renewed defenses of free speech and tolerance -- long taken for granted. But the tolerance movement should go further to include what the late philosopher Harvard...

TGIF: Why Is Government Stuff Called “Public”?

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 13, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Government facilities and services -- which are actually disservices overall -- are called "public" while services that are efficiently responsive to the public are dubbed "private." Why is that? That way of framing the distinction could be intended to subtly denigrate the marketplace, or "private sector," where profit "selfishly" motivates people who, in the process, improve strangers' lives every day. That sector's record is noticeably better than the "public sector's." So we're taught to believe that the government's motives are purer -- the unselfish pursuit of the "public interest" by...

TGIF: A Market for Law?

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 6, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF

Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. --Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792 Sometimes an idea that at first sounds nuts isn't really nuts at all. Case in point: the market-anarchist principle that people should be free to buy the law and protection they want in the market. Even a subscriber to Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism might raise an eyebrow because Rothbard...