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In the last two weeks, I’ve heard some people comment that this is a difficult time to be a libertarian. I disagree. The events of September 11 and its aftermath only reinforce the case for a free society, a point to which I will return shortly. What is difficult is to defend freedom and peace when everyone around you is crying out for

This story of the political dissent begins in Guatemala City, the capital of a country that is deeply troubled economically. The problems are familiar. There are mercantilist trade policies designed to enrich the politically well-connected at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are very high. Laws and courts are tainted and often corrupt. Labor

In a little-noticed announcement, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has made a stab at estimating the direct costs of this splendid little war against Afghanistan. In the past this group has provided a very useful service in telling us exactly what the Pentagon is loath to talk about: how many taxpayer dollars our military central

At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society. Let’s begin with one of the most famous phrases: “There’s no room at the inn.” This phrase is often invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers Joseph and Mary. Many renditions

Defenders of liberty are prone to despair, perhaps always, and certainly since the end of the eighteenth century, when the hopes of the last Enlightenment generation were dashed as the French Revolution descended into tyranny and war, and the American Revolution was betrayed by federal consolidation in the decades that followed. Then, as now, the

In an awful, but not unexpected, ruling on a long-standing dispute between Europe and the US, the World Trade Organization says that the US must stop permitting US exporters to set up foreign subsidiaries that save as much as 30 percent in taxes they would otherwise pay. Now the US must either raise taxes by eliminating loopholes or face massive

In its dealings with foreign nations, the U.S. generally tries to maintain the moral high ground in its pronouncements and policies. But by slapping a 30-percent tariff on foreign steel, the U.S. has hit rock bottom in hypocrisy and favoritism, and everyone knows it.  The idea here is to help one inefficient, bloated, and pampered industry at the

This speech by the president of the Mises Institute was given before students, professors, trustees, and others at an awards dinner sponsored by the Adam Smith Club, Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina, April 4, 2002 . Rockwell and entrepreneur Lewis Fetterman received the club’s Free Enterprise Award . Free-market economics, of which

Among the greatest failures of the free-market intellectual movement has been to allow its ideas to be categorized as a “public policy” option. The formulation implies a concession that it is up to the state--its managers and kept intellectuals--to decide how, when, and where freedom is to be permitted. It further implies that the purpose of

Why does freedom need a relentless intellectual defense? Because of statements like the following: “the legitimacy of global capitalism as the dominant system of production, distribution, and exchange will be eroded even further, even in the heartland of the system; while there are villains aplenty, it is the dynamics of the system of