Recently added articles from Freeman:
Theory and Crisis
Jan 01, 2009; ... What might be even more distressing than the current buildup of the corporate state in response to the supposed economic crisis is the way some self-styled advocates of the free market are willing to cast aside the economic theory they once claimed to embrace. If you are a glutton for ...
A Man Who Knew the Value of Life and Liberty
Jan 01, 2009; ... A television audience in the millions will feast on the glitz and glamor of Hollywood when the 81st Annual Academy Awards are bestowed February 22. My thoughts will be elsewhere that Sunday night-on a friend who won an Oscar 24 years ago. Three days later, February 25, will mark the 13th ...
Individualism Clashes with Cooperation? It Just Ain't So!
Jan 01, 2009; ... Individualists get a bad rap in politics these days. That should come as no surprise; politics these days is dominated by electoral politics, and electoral politics is an essentially anti-individualistic enterprise. With free markets and other forms of voluntary association, people who ...
Raw Milk and the Sour State
Jan 01, 2009; ... Take a moment, if you will, to think about the milk you buy from the grocery store. Whether it is an expensive organic brand or simply carries a mega-chain store name, that milk has undergone pasteurization and homogenization. In pasteurization it has been quickly heated to temperatures ...
Poker and the Free Market
Jan 01, 2009; ... Until recently I was a director and the chairman of the audit committee of one of Bermuda's banks, but I lived with a guilty secret, almost the equivalent of being an alcoholic or, even worse, a smoker. I played poker regularly and had done so since I was about 20 years old. A public poker game ...
On the Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle, Part I
Jan 01, 2009; ... One of the most vivid memories of my undergraduate years is of sitting for hours in my carrel in the old Polk Library at Nicholls State University and reading FA. Hayek's Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle and his Prices and Production. These books on the economic cycles of booms and busts are ...
Liquid Lies
Jan 01, 2009; ... Government programs rely on deception from start to . . . Well, none of them ever seems to finish, but if one did, the end would doubtless be as devious as the beginning. Politicians propose programs to solve imaginary problems and perpetuate them with blatant lies. Predictably, this wreaks ...
Michael Oakeshott on Rationalism in Politics
Jan 01, 2009; ... The British philosopher and historian Michael Oakeshott is a curious figure in twentiethcentury intellectual history. He is known mostly as a "conservative political theorist," although he rejected ideology and his conservatism was primarily temperamental. Furthermore, his work on politics was ...
Gun Control: An Economic Analysis
Jan 01, 2009; ... In Economics 101 we teach students about several fundamental concepts, including the relationship between means and ends, forward-looking behavior, the use of substitutes, opportunity cost, and the role of moral hazard. Further, we insist that these concepts can be used to help understand the ...
Nixon's New Economic Plan
Jan 01, 2009; ... Richard Nixon had a crisis mentality. In 1962, unhappily out of public office, he wrote an autobiographical account entitled Six Crises. Whereas some presidents have faced real crises, how- ever, Nixon's were more the product of his personal sense of siege. As president he twice declared a state ...
Taxation as Vandalism
Jan 01, 2009; ... Imagine a small town with only a few small businesses. The best, most prosperous business is the general store, which sells citizens many of their daily necessities. Just across the street is a shop that sells and installs windows. Unlike the general store, the window shop is not doing well at ...
In Praise of Educational Pluralism
Jan 01, 2009; ... I often hear it said that if the government did not determine what our children are taught, we would have no way to assure they learned the right things. The idea here is that every child deserves a proper edu- cation and that, although government education has its share of problems, at least we ...
What Happened to Market Discipline?
Jan 01, 2009; ... During the late presidential campaign Barack Obama said, "[Today's economic problems are] a stark reminder of the failures of ... an economic philosophy that sees any regulation at all as unwise and unnecessary." What? Does that mean that until last fall the Bush administration embraced ...
Capital Letters
Jan 01, 2009; ... How Rapidly Should the Money Supply Grow? I would like to make one correction to Howard Baetjer's article "Inflation 101" (September). The author suggests that inflation results when the money supply expands faster than the rate at which goods and services are produced. The author ...
Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class
Jan 01, 2009; ... Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class by Robert H. Frank University of California Press * 2007 * 160 pages * $19.95 Reviewed by Alan Reynolds Robert Frank, a professor of economics at Cornell, has long argued that affluent Americans spend too much on ...
Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Law
Jan 01, 2009; ... Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Law by Kevin R.Johnson New York University Press * 2007 * 304 pages * $35.00 Reviewed by George C. Leef In recent years there have been numerous highly publicized federal raids against companies that ...
Economic Facts and Fallacies
Jan 01, 2009; ... Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell Basic Books * 2007 * 221 pages * $26.00 Reviewed by Gary M. Galles You don't have to read far to find the focus of Thomas Sowell s latest book, Economic Facts and Fallacies. It begins by quoting John Adams - "Facts are stubborn ...
The War Between the State and the Family: How Government Divides and Impoverishes
Jan 01, 2009; ... The War Between the State and the Family: How Government Divides and Impoverishes by Patricia Morgan Transaction Publishers * 2008 * 162 pages * $24.95 Reviewed by Raymond J. Keating Sympathy and compassion help make humans caring, moral beings. Adam Smith, the father of modern ...
How Bad Can It Get?
Jan 01, 2009; ... In August the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) in Washington state released its State of Labor 2008 (the Report), which warns of several perils emanating from the growth of government-sector collective bargaining and offers suggestions for ameliorating them. (The Report is available in PDF at ...
Beth A. Hoffman, 1950-2008
Jan 01, 2009; ... We are saddened to announce that our longtime colleague and Freeman managing editor, Beth A. Hoffman, passed away December 1 at the age of 58. Beth, who joined the FEE staff over 30 years ago, was beloved by the Foundation's many friends and supporters. She worked tirelessly and ably in a ...