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Sheldon Richman Articles

TGIF: Extend Tolerance to Commerce

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 20, 2023

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...

TGIF: Why Is Government Stuff Called “Public”?

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 13, 2023

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...

TGIF: A Market for Law?

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 6, 2023

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....

TGIF: Limited Government’s Bait and Switch

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 29, 2023

In a fundamental respect, libertarian minarchism (minimal, or limited, government) and market anarchism (or anarcho-capitalism) have something important in common: neither can guarantee individual rights. But there's a big difference: unlike market anarchism,...

TGIF: Hurrah for Real Globalization!

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 22, 2023

Globalization, like the free market and classical liberalism generally, isn't wildly popular these days, is it? People blame globalization for all sorts of bad things, and the raps are usually bum. In truth, to the extent that governments keep out so-called foreign...

TGIF: Free Speech Affirmed — Pretty Much

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 15, 2023

[Updated Sept. 16] The preliminary injunction against federal censorship of social-media users has survived the Biden administration's appeal. However, it remains on hold until Sept. 22 while the Supreme Court considers the matter. The latest ruling, 78 pages long, by...

TGIF: Who Rules? That Is Not the Question

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 8, 2023

Today's two major contenders for political power seem to be elitists and populists. Funnily enough, both types are present in each of the big tribes known as progressive/liberal and conservatism, left and right, or Democratic and Republican. (Here's the lowdown on...

TGIF: Tribalism and the Dark Art of the Package Deal

by Sheldon Richman | Sep 1, 2023

Tribalism not only lives; it rules -- even more than I thought! I've been reading Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis's book The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America. It's certainly clarified my thinking. The Lewis brothers are a...

TGIF: Why the State Is Corrupt

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 25, 2023

Why is government corrupt? You'll notice that I did not ask, "Is government corrupt." We've had enough experience to go right to the main question. I might have softened it with the phrase tends to be to acknowledge that not everyone in government is corrupt, at least...

TGIF: On “Giving Back”

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 18, 2023

P&G, the maker of popular household brands like Tide and Downy laundry products, is giving away $10,000 in college scholarships. That's $1.5 million and 150 scholarships in all. My problem, aside from its encouraging college attendance, is with how the company is...

TGIF: Why Liberty Matters

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 11, 2023

Why does liberty matter? It’s a fair question because, after all, not everyone thinks it matters very much, perhaps beyond some very basic point. If that’s an overstatement, we can safely say that for many people on the left and right, liberty is a lower priority than...

TGIF: Shame on Government for Censoring Us

by Sheldon Richman | Aug 4, 2023

Alas, federal District Judge Terry A. Doughty's preliminary injunction against government censorship of us on social media has been put on hold. So rules three members of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But this stay of the injunction in State of Missouri et al....

TGIF: What about Politicians?

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 28, 2023

The best-selling social scientist and, it so happens, libertarian Bryan Caplan thinks politicians are immoral. Sounds promising. He's discussed this online and in one of his published blog-post collections, How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery. What are we...

TGIF: Paternalists Cross the Free-Speech Line

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 21, 2023

Some pundits are puzzled that respectable mainstream Democrats and "progressives" are no longer free-speech absolutists but rather are enthusiastic defenders of the government's massive effort to squelch expression on the social media platforms. (Glenn Greenwald is...

TGIF: Free Speech Upsets Powers that Be

by Sheldon Richman | Jul 14, 2023

The Biden administration, along with mainstream politicians and journalists, are really upset that U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has forbidden the executive branch of the central government from communicating with social-media platforms for the purpose of...

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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