Freeman back issues from January 2008:
A Matter of Priorities
Jan 01, 2008; ... 'Tis the political season, which means the season to bash immigrants. This goes especially for so-called "illegal aliens," that is, residents without government papers. (As if that's a big deal.) Candidates and others who are set on securing the Mexican border-the Canadian border seems ...
The Free Market versus the Interventionist State
Jan 01, 2008; ... During the first half of 1926, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises visited the United States on a three-month lecture tour. After his return to his native Austria, he delivered a talk on "Changes in American Economic Policy" at a meeting of the Vienna Industrial Club. He explained: The ...
The Fed Didn't Bail Out Wall Street? It Just Ain't So!
Jan 01, 2008; ... In his NewYork Times column ("It's Monetary Policy, Not a Morality Play," September 9, 2007), Tyler Cowen decried the clichéd pattern of casting all financial stories into "simple moral narratives." Although many commentators have questioned the Fed's handling of the credit crunch last August ...
Wildfires and State-Worship
Jan 01, 2008; ... Whenever wars or other tragedies rage, so too rage those who worship at the altar of government. In his World War I-era essay, "War Is the Health of the State," writer Randolph Bourne argued that during peaceful times people concern themselves mostly with their own business, but that ...
Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace
Jan 01, 2008; ... When I teach money and banking, I begin the section on the history of the American monetary system by asking my students what the following dates in U.S. history have in common: 1812-1816, 1863, 1913, and 1971. The obvious answer is, "times of war or close to it." (If you count the Great ...
Alcohol, Prohibition, and the Revenuers
Jan 01, 2008; ... The standard account of America's experience with alcohol Prohibition centers on ideology. This account states that citizens were so infused with Progressive hubris that they set forth in 1919 on a futile quest to mandate morality by banning the manufacture and sale of liquor. But when they ...
Congestion Pricing: The Road to the Surveillance State
Jan 01, 2008; ... To combat the rush-hour traffic threatening Western civilization, American mayors are flocking to "congestion pricing." They're not alone: rulers worldwide love this scheme because it combines yet another automotive tax with surveillance cameras at every intersection. The theory fueling ...
The Constitution or Liberty
Jan 01, 2008; ... Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. We might think those words-or words to the same effect-are in the U.S ....
Madison's Veto Sets a Precedent
Jan 01, 2008; ... Today, when a president looks at a spending bill that has passed Congress, he typically asks, "How wiU this help my party gain votes?" and "What interest groups will this bring to my side?" Sometimes, when modern presidents are more philosophical, they ask, "Will this spending help the economy, ...
Prosecutorial Indiscretion
Jan 01, 2008; ... Last July 26 former Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong offered a fuU and unqualified apology for his crusade to convict three palpably innocent white Duke University students of raping a black woman in March 2006. Nifong acknowledged there had been "no credible evidence" of their ...
The Game of Politics
Jan 01, 2008; ... In a recent column in Metro magazine, published in Raleigh, North Carolina, the former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Jim Leutze, lamented that "calling for conservation [is] like shouting down a well." He is unhappy that the state legislature has so far resisted ...
Volunteer Railways in Britain
Jan 01, 2008; ... In 21st-century England you don't expect to find a fireman shoveling coal into a steam locomotive, but that's what 59-year old Paul Rimmer does. During his shift on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, he heaves two tons of coal from the tender of engine 45212 into its roaring firebox, a tougher ...
Don't Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet
Jan 01, 2008; ... Recently on "20/20" I said "give me a break" to Al Gore for claiming that the global-warming debate is over and suggesting that all dissenters were in it for the money. I interviewed independent scientists who say Gore is wrong. Some people were relieved to finally hear the other side: ...
Capital Letters
Jan 01, 2008; ... David Hume and Reason In the very title of his article in The Freeman of October 2007, Frank van Dun asks, "Can We Be Free If Reason Is the Slave of the Passions?" His article is uncommonly long and gauzy for a Freeman piece; and his citations to David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature are ...
The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care
Jan 01, 2008; ... The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care by David Gratzer Encounter Books * 2006 * 233 pages * $25.95 Reviewed by Jane M. Orient David Gratzer learned one of his most important lessons in medical school on his way to class. He had to wind his way around the gurneys ...
Self-Determination: The Other Path for Native Americans
Jan 01, 2008; ... Self-Determination: The Other Path for Native Americans Edited by Terry L. Anderson, Bruce L. Benson, and Tliomas F. Flanagan Stanford University Press * 2006 * 331 pages * $35.00 Reviewed by William L. Anderson While driving across the American west in 2006, I passed through ...
The Wal-Mart Revolution
Jan 01, 2008; ... The Wal-Mart Revolution By Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox American Enterprise Institute * 2006 * 199 pages * $20.00 paperback Reviewed by George Leef Without a doubt, Wal-Mart is the most demonized business in American history. The company is widely accused of mistreating and ...
On the Wealth of Nations
Jan 01, 2008; ... On the Wealth of Nations by P.J. O'Rourke Atlantic Monthly * 2007 * 242 pages * $21.95 Reviewed by Raymond J. Keating Here's a great idea for a book: Have the leading libertarian, free-market humorist and satirist P.J. O'Rourke show readers why An Inquiry into the Nature and ...
Economics and Property Rights
Jan 01, 2008; ... Economic theory does not operate in a vacuum. Institutions, such as the property-rights structure, do not change economic theory but influence how the theory manifests itself. Sinnlarly, the law of gravity is not repealed when a parachutist floats gently down to earth. The parachute simply ...