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Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: NPR Marketplace Blows a Chance to Teach Sound Economics

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 6, 2017

This week, thanks to the Independent Institute (which lists me as a research fellow), I was interviewed by NPR's Marketplace (American Public Media) for a piece on Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on goods that come from China. (It's the first story for the...

Grounds for Impeachment

by Sheldon Richman | Jan 5, 2017

David Swanson points out an irony on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration: possibly real grounds for impeachment on Day 1 are being given a backseat to the groundless hysteria about Russian President Vladimir Putin's alleged interference with the presidential...

TGIF: What’s a Secular Heretic to Do?

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 16, 2016

Secular and religion-based political systems can bear an uncanny resemblance. Observing their respective dogmas, catechisms, and sacraments, we might even wonder, with William Cavanaugh, whether the divide is as sharp as we commonly think. Recent events certainly call...

Ralph Raico, RIP

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 13, 2016

My old friend and mentor Ralph Raico has died. He was 80. I cannot adequately describe how much I learned from him over the years: about liberalism, about how to be a historian, about how to lecture, about how to be an honest scholar. I will miss his wisdom, his...

Commerce Promotes Peace, But …

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 13, 2016

"They who propose to influence by force the traffic of the world, forget that affairs of trade, like matters of conscience, change their very nature if touched by the hand of violence; for as faith, if forced, would no longer be religion, but hypocrisy, so commerce...

Those Nefarious Russians!

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 11, 2016

How dare they (if they actually did) tell Americans that politicians say one thing in public and something else in private! What next? That water is wet??

TGIF: Trump, Carrier, and the Corporate State

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 9, 2016

Should free-market advocates applaud the deal Donald Trump brokered to keep some Carrier jobs from being transferred to Mexico? I believe the right answer is no. A virtue of the market process is precisely its impersonal nature. People are free to engage in exchanges...

Dubious Syllogism

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 3, 2016

Taxation is theft. Not having to pay taxes is good. Therefore, presidential discretion over who does and doesn't pay taxes is good.

TGIF: Thank You, Donald Trump

by Sheldon Richman | Dec 1, 2016

We advocates of liberty owe Donald Trump a great debt of gratitude. Thanks to Trump it is clearer than ever that most people who call themselves conservatives, and not just those who have lined up with Trump, are no cousins of ours. (There are honorable exceptions,...

About Flag-Burning

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 30, 2016

"It is the right of everyone to express their opinion, choose a profession and practice it, to dispose of property, and even to abuse it; to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives or undertakings. [Emphasis added.]" --Benjamin...

The OSU Assailant’s Inspiration

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 29, 2016

The opinion molders want you to believe that the OSU assailant was "inspired by ISIS." More likely he was inspired by US bombing of Muslims in seven countries. ISIS is just a banner; eliminate it and people upset by US murder-by-drone will find another. Remarkably, US...

America’s Counter-Revolution Reviewed

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 29, 2016

My thanks to Winton Bates of Australia for his review of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited. "Did the framers of the U.S. Constitution intend it to protect liberty? "A week ago my answer would have been along the lines that while I could not...

Love, Marriage, and the State

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 25, 2016

Institute board member Gary Chartier has written another excellent book, Public Practice, Private Law: An Essay on Love, Marriage, and the State. I reviewed it for The American Conservative.

TGIF: Libertarianism Without the Magic

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 17, 2016

I had the pleasure of appearing before the Amherst Political Union (Amherst College) this week to discuss the election of Donald Trump as president and the future of liberty. What perhaps pleased me even more was meeting with a group of young libertarians eager to...

TGIF: How the Ruling Class Created Trump

by Sheldon Richman | Nov 13, 2016

Mixed emotions over the election are entirely in order. I rejoice at the repudiation of the ruling elite while recoiling from horrific thing that has been embraced. Only about 57 percent of the 231,556,622 eligible voters cast ballots, but many of the stay-at-homes...

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Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

What Social Animal's Owe to Each Other

by Sheldon Richman

These essays, written over the past 20 years, have a single underlying theme: namely, that we human beings, as social animals, need individual freedom to fully flourish.

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Coming to Palestine