In a cliche-ridden foreign-policy speech delivered at the State Department on Thursday, President Joe Biden declared that "America is back"--on the global stage, presumably, as policeman of the world, but certainly not a disinterested policeman. The problem is that it...
This is an expanded version of something I wrote for The Freeman, October 2003, during my tenure as the editor. Socialism has been mortally discredited on economic grounds, thanks to Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and history. But for many people it has not been...
In 1949, the first year of Harry S. Truman's only elective presidential term, three things happened that were of huge importance ... at least to me. Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) published Human Action. Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) published The Concept of Mind. And, oh...
I am not, nor have I ever been, a golfer. I did golf once, just before the turn of the century, and I disliked it. Nevertheless, I live by a cardinal principle in golfer etiquette: Replace your divots. A divot, of course, is a chunk of turf that is dislodged by a golf...
An Associated Press article published a few days ago reported on disagreements among libertarians over what, if anything, the government may properly do about the coronavirus pandemic. My purpose here is not to comment on the quotes from the various libertarians. I...
Libertarians have always acknowledged that emergencies -- severe extraordinary conditions of limited duration -- can justify actions that would be unacceptable under normal circumstances. This doesn't mean that all the rights-based rules disappear, only that some...
[This article originally appeared on the American Institute for Economic Research website on September 12, 2017.] Critics of the free economy often complain that the market fails to “behave” as economic theory predicts. Hence the voluminous literature on “market...
However you feel about democracy, it can’t fix what’s wrong with socialism. In theory, modern representative democracy -- unlike ancient Greek direct democracy -- means that people vote for so-called representatives to fill various executive and legislative...
