Free Markets
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Centrally Planned Security Doesn’t Work Either
If not armed teachers, if not gun-free zones, if not gun bans, if not granting to the government an exclusive domain for security and the threat of violence, what is the answer? The least satisfying answer is actually the right one: we do not know precisely how to secure schools. We – “we” as in…
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Earthquake Economics
Let us not forget the contribution of free economies to making life safer. It wasn’t the regulations that made the difference. It was the innovations in the context of free enterprise.
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Remember What the Internet Is All About
Some great minds are remembered mostly for one moment in time, a momentous action or revelatory piece of writing. Such is the case for John Perry Barlow, who died on February 7, 2018. Born in 1947, he was a remarkable visionary, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead who later became a founder of the Electronic…
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If You Love Progress, Embrace Markets
People talk often of how technology is disruptive. That’s only part of the story. Technology also serves the oldest values and the most ancient aspirations of the human experience, and does so in a way that is organically peaceful with how we live. It’s the much-maligned market economy that makes it all possible, and does…
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What’s Wrong with Copyright and How to Fix It
To my mind, Creative Commons is an imperfect solution to a major problem, while the best solution would simply leave the whole problem of production, ownership, and attribution to the market itself. But that is not the world we yet live in. Until then, it’s a beautiful thing that the market has found a stop-gap…
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Civil Asset Forfeiture Undermines Free Enterprise and Human Dignity
Private property rights are the foundation of free enterprise. Without property rights trade will be suppressed and pushed underground. Growth is strangled and good people resort to dealing with corrupt officials and black market sellers just to get through their lives. We are all made worse off when authorities have excessive discretion, and without proof…
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What Has Government Done to Our Bathrooms?
The net effect of all of this has been to ruin our bathrooms. You might not realize it because the change has been slow, extending over 25 years. Only by encountering a bathroom with original fixtures from the 1940s can you perceive the full horror of what has happened. Our showers are lame, our toilets…
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Why the Dramatic Decline in Crime?
For centuries, for millennia, we’ve relied on government to stop invasions of person and property. We live more safely than ever before, thanks to market-based technological improvements, not reliance on government. It was once believed that only government could provide security; this debate dates back centuries. Now we learn otherwise. We get security from the…
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The Many Delusions of Socialism Revisited
Sombart’s leftism became rightism but it was made of the same substance always: a loathing of regular people in their free choices and a longing for history to follow his own imaginings of what should be rather than what is. Such is the core of socialist ideology: a delusion rooted in snobbery and, above all…
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We Are the True Liberals
In the 19th century liberalism was used to describe the people who believed in liberty, a creed unifying the belief in free markets with the beliefs in freedom of speech and the press.
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Centrally Planned Security Doesn’t Work Either
If not armed teachers, if not gun-free zones, if not gun bans, if not granting to the government an exclusive domain for security and the threat of violence, what is the answer? The least satisfying answer is actually the right one: we do not know precisely how to secure schools. We – “we” as in…
-
•
Earthquake Economics
Let us not forget the contribution of free economies to making life safer. It wasn’t the regulations that made the difference. It was the innovations in the context of free enterprise.
-
•
Remember What the Internet Is All About
Some great minds are remembered mostly for one moment in time, a momentous action or revelatory piece of writing. Such is the case for John Perry Barlow, who died on February 7, 2018. Born in 1947, he was a remarkable visionary, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead who later became a founder of the Electronic…
-
•
If You Love Progress, Embrace Markets
People talk often of how technology is disruptive. That’s only part of the story. Technology also serves the oldest values and the most ancient aspirations of the human experience, and does so in a way that is organically peaceful with how we live. It’s the much-maligned market economy that makes it all possible, and does…
-
•
What’s Wrong with Copyright and How to Fix It
To my mind, Creative Commons is an imperfect solution to a major problem, while the best solution would simply leave the whole problem of production, ownership, and attribution to the market itself. But that is not the world we yet live in. Until then, it’s a beautiful thing that the market has found a stop-gap…
-
•
Civil Asset Forfeiture Undermines Free Enterprise and Human Dignity
Private property rights are the foundation of free enterprise. Without property rights trade will be suppressed and pushed underground. Growth is strangled and good people resort to dealing with corrupt officials and black market sellers just to get through their lives. We are all made worse off when authorities have excessive discretion, and without proof…
-
•
What Has Government Done to Our Bathrooms?
The net effect of all of this has been to ruin our bathrooms. You might not realize it because the change has been slow, extending over 25 years. Only by encountering a bathroom with original fixtures from the 1940s can you perceive the full horror of what has happened. Our showers are lame, our toilets…
-
•
Why the Dramatic Decline in Crime?
For centuries, for millennia, we’ve relied on government to stop invasions of person and property. We live more safely than ever before, thanks to market-based technological improvements, not reliance on government. It was once believed that only government could provide security; this debate dates back centuries. Now we learn otherwise. We get security from the…
-
•
The Many Delusions of Socialism Revisited
Sombart’s leftism became rightism but it was made of the same substance always: a loathing of regular people in their free choices and a longing for history to follow his own imaginings of what should be rather than what is. Such is the core of socialist ideology: a delusion rooted in snobbery and, above all…
-
•
We Are the True Liberals
In the 19th century liberalism was used to describe the people who believed in liberty, a creed unifying the belief in free markets with the beliefs in freedom of speech and the press.