Since its publication the Communist Manifesto has influenced most forms of government. The ideology has mutated from one of utopian ambition to providing a framework that uses the language of egalitarian justice. Marxist ideology no longer has a revolutionary spirit...
protectionism
Trade Restrictions Are Depriving Our Infants of Formula
by Ryan McMaken | May 16, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
For parents who rely on baby formula—whether by choice or due to medical necessity—the nationwide baby formula shortage has become increasingly difficult to ignore. According to the Wall Street Journal, Walgreens, Target, CVS, and Kroger have all begun rationing...
How We Incentivize Peace in the World
by Nolan Miller | Mar 9, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
If you are reading this, there’s a good chance you are one of the people in the world that wants to see all foreign militaries go home and for governments to focus on their own issues rather than intervening in other countries. Maybe you post news stories on Facebook...
TGIF: Double-Rigging of the Auto Market
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 17, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
U.S. government interference with our lives often resembles a Russian matryoshka doll: regulation is nested in more regulation. Take the provision of Biden's pending Build Back Better bill that would create a big tax credit for people who buy U.S.-built electric...
Protectionism: Morally and Economically Dumb
by Jim Bovard | Nov 1, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
Protectionism is reviving in Washington on both sides of the political aisle. Democrats are cheering proposals to restrict trade to benefit labor unions and save the environment while some Republicans are reviving Smoot-Hawley style salvation schemes. Protectionist...
Down With Fraudulent ‘Fair’ Trade
by Jim Bovard | Oct 21, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
The Biden administration is embracing the same flawed “fair trade” mantra that previous administrations used to sanctify protectionist policies. Biden’s team has “largely dispensed with the idea of free trade as a goal in and of itself,” the New York...
That Time I Swiped the U.S. Tariff Code
by Jim Bovard | Oct 8, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
"Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy,” as Attorney General Ramsey Clark warned in 1967. As a journalist, I have battled federal agencies for decades to try to discover the sordid details of how Americans’ rights and liberties are being shafted. Most government...
How Shipping Interests Have Rigged the Economic Game for a Century
by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Jul 1, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
There’s a 101-year-old law most Americans have never heard of, one that shaves tens of billions of dollars out of the U.S. economy every year for the narrow benefit of politically-influential shipbuilders, shipyard unions and shipping lines. The Jones Act does that by...
TGIF: What the State Really Is
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 4, 2021 | Economics, Justice, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
To better understand the nature of government, one can think of it as an agency that sells or, more precisely, rents power to others. The greater the power and the wider its scope, the more opportunities the state's agents will have to sell access to it in return for...
Our Tower of Economic Lies
by William Anderson | May 12, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles
In a recent issue, Time Magazine boldly declared, “The Free Market Is Dead,” and then added: “What Will Replace It?” Of course, one always can expect Time to be disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst, and as an academic economist, I have come to realize that...
Challenging George Mason University’s Cadre of Patent Enthusiasts
by Stephan Kinsella | Mar 12, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism
I’ve previously criticized George Mason economist Alex Tabarrok’s views on patents.1 For example, as noted in Patent Policy on the Back of a Napkin, Tabarrok makes a Laffer-curve style argument that patent rights are currently “too strong.” Of course, he is correct...
Toxic Partisanship: A Gateway Towards Authoritarianism
by David D'Amato | Sep 1, 2020 | Featured Articles, Politics
For years a consistent refrain in American politics has bewailed an increasingly polarized political atmosphere. As the Pew Research Center observes, for the first time in almost 25 years, “majorities in both parties express not just unfavorable but very unfavorable...
Covidonomics: What Will the Covid-19 Crisis Do to Our Political Economy?
by Koen Swinkels | Mar 21, 2020 | Blog
The Covid-19 crisis is fueling a race to find solutions for the problem while also shutting down large parts of the economy and giving governments enormous economic powers. Except for wartime mobilization, this situation is unprecedented. In this article I discuss...
The WTO Is Both Irrelevant and Unnecessary
by Ryan McMaken | Feb 26, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is in a state of crisis. Despite grandiose dreams of a global trade organization that would enforce global bureaucrats' broad vision for multilateral trade agreements, the world looks more and more like it neither wants nor needs an...
Blog
Reminder: Volodymyr Zelenskyy Almost Started a World War Based on a Lie
On November 15th, the Associated Press reported that "A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people". Since Poland is a member of the North American Treaty Organization, that would mean that America along...
Christopher Hitchens Lied About the Cause of Terrorism
"The suicide murder community is almost perfectly faith based." - Christopher Hitchens On Real Time With Bill Maher, Hitchens claims that because an Islamist in the 1800's used the Koran to justify atrocities, it means that today the issue with Al-Qaeda is due to the...
War is a Euphemism for Mass Murder
To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime, to kill ten men is to increase the guilt tenfold, to kill a hundred men is to increase it a hundredfold. This the rulers of the earth all recognize, and yet when it comes to the greatest crime — waging war on another...
Empower the Working Class: Abolish Occupational Licensing
It's time to consistently apply the "my body my choice" principle. If consenting adults want to engage in economic activity, no third party should forcibly stop them. Democrats always say "voting once every two years between two politicians is how you express...
Death By Climate: Down 97% in Last 100 Years
Our schools provide many hours of lessons on climate change, but I wonder how many teachers, let alone pupils, are aware that climate-related deaths have decreased by as much as 97 per cent over the past 100 years, as the OFDA / CRED data show. - Why don’t we ever...
Black Youth Unemployment: Before and After Progressives Started “Helping”
A constant trend is progressivism is to use the state to coercively control others under the guise of "helping" them, make things worse, then ignore the problems you caused and never apologize. Sallie Mae loans didn't make college affordable. The Federal Reserve...
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