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This film is in theaters now, but unfortunately not for long. Please get out to see this film! This is our story, a libertarian story. See more films about liberty and the state at the film page. Amazing Grace (2007) What could be more opposed to the principle of self-ownership than slavery, an institution that is, very possibly, older than the

The Free Market 19, no. 2 (February 2001)   I have come up with a brief list of films I’ve happened upon that I think are of particular interest to the cause of liberty. I am not vouching for ideological purity in any of these films, but they do underscore the case against managed societies and economics. Also, I have selected films that are

Anyone who has read RJ Rummel’s China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 can only wish that the Chinese would get a merciful break after all that. (Except for the neocons who are eager to get a conflict going with China and for whom mercy, I gather, is not a virtue.) A Chinese co-worker recently returned from a visit back home

In If Men Were Angels Robert Higgs analyzes James Madison’s famous passage from The Federalist No. 51 containing the quotable line “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” This is an excellent article with several useful analytical approaches to thinking about the state. Of particular value is a section on the “dynamic

It is a commonplace, for libertarians at least, that coercive redistribution cuts into charity by reducing the funds available for charitable giving. But Arthur C. Brooks, in his book Who Really Cares , points to another effect of redistribution on giving... To be precise, an effect of a belief in redistribution. From an interview with Brooks in

Garrison Keillor notes the anniversary of the GI Bill on the Writer’s Almanac : It was on this day in 1944 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the GI Bill of Rights. It was one of the most important and influential pieces of legislation ever signed by an American president, but the newspapers barely covered the story at the time.

Joe Kissell at Interesting Thing of the Day does a little investigation to try to piece together The Story of Toilet Paper . If someone is going on about how idyllic life was before capitalism destroyed our more natural way of life (e.g., distributists , environmentalists, communitarians, hippies, etc.) then just bringing up the lack of toilet

Is the myth of the “do nothing” Herbert Hoover dying? Michael Kitchen at MarketWatch writes : ...Herbert Hoover -- only nine months into his presidency -- assembled leaders from the public and private sectors to create an economic-stimulus package. Among the measures, Time magazine reported at the time, was a promise from Congress to offer

I have come up with a list of some films I’ve happened upon that I think are of particular interest to Austrians and libertarians. In addition to having some libertarian angle, (and I, by no means, am vouching for ideological purity in any of these films), I also selected for films that are generally high quality (critically acclaimed). Where

Bob Murphy has unwittingly made a great contribution in his article today to a short list of common false dichotomies in the area of political economy: The first thing to realize is that people do not decide to “spend” or not; rather, they decide whether to spend in the present versus in the future . Here is a similar false dichotomy spotted by