Civil libertarians and police corruption watchdogs have much to celebrate these days. The fact that most people are walking around with high definition video cameras in their pockets has done much to shine a light on what these groups have been talking about for...
One interesting feature of libertarian theory is its ability to offer a critique of corporate capitalism from the perspective of laissez faire economics. The political economics of societies with large corporations are troublesome, and if you read left-wing literature...
The Second Amendment is the provision in the Bill of Rights that seems to scare people the most. Why? The Second Amendment lays down the groundwork for the right to keep and bear arms. Specifically, it asserts that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is the...
The relationship between conservatism and libertarianism is a tenuous one. However, such was not always the case. Fellow travelers of both groups were united in opposing Roosevelt’s New Deal. The work of the late economist Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) on the “Old...
Tyler Cowen, who is said to be “known as one of the libertarian world’s deepest thinkers,” recently wrote a blog post entitled “What Libertarianism Has Become and Will Become — State Capacity Libertarianism.” There, Cowen asserts that libertarianism “is now pretty...
Originally published at "The Massacre" in The Libertarian Forum, October 1982. All other news, all other concerns, fade into insignificance beside the enormous horror of the massacre in Beirut. All humanity is outraged at the wanton slaughter of hundreds of men...
Is it possible for a stateless society to adequately protect property rights? Any Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist has no doubt been confronted with the assertion that a state is necessary to enforce the property rights so vital to a market-based, capitalist system. Is...
Introduction So many ideas that we take for granted had once been considered revolutionary. Historically, common responses to founders of such ideas have been charges of heresy, ostracism, or death. Famously, Socrates was sentenced to die for “corrupting the youth”,...
