Capitalism (the free economy) is constantly being criticized, and it usually comes down to opposition to, and resentment against, the merchant class. However, the arguments and examples that people use against business under capitalism are not only illogical but also inaccurate.
Why are Maine farmers dumping milk? The way to respond to falling prices, writes Robbie Blevins, is to offer a better product more efficiently. The signal of the need to do so is a feature of free enterprise, the system in which the consumer—which is to say, the common person—is king.
Gore's remarks come at a curious time, his party having suffered some terrible electoral defeats in the last election cycle. A proposal to create a Canadian-like system in Oregon was defeated 80-20 at the polls. Yet there are reasons why the socialist idea remains popular.
Do you remember, asks Tibor Machan, when America was called the leader of the Free World? It seems like so long ago. Now the USA is the leader of the protectionist world, the very opposite of free, at least where international commerce is concerned.
John Gray is Ayn Rand's nightmare come true. Once a classical liberal, he now finds the inanities of Tony Blair's "Third Way",
When intellectuals teach the children of nonintellectuals to hate their own civilization, and regard its achievements as acts of villainy, writes Steven Yates, they only invite waves of understandable anti-intellectual reaction.
To speak about average prices is like talking about average precipitation to a golfer, writes Chris Mayer. It either rains during a specific time period or it doesn't. There is no average that is anyway useful for an acting human being on a golf course. The only information that counts is what it is doing right now while he is teeing off. It is the same with prices.
Lew Rockwell asks us to think of a robber who promises to stop coming through your front door if you promise to leave open the back door. So it is with the state that promises to stop taxing your income if you let it tax your consumption. The issue is not the method; it is the amount.
For a few billion dollars, you might expect to be able to bribe some small third world country into cleaning up its act, to defend the property rights of its citizens, to provide a stable currency, and to establish a non-interventionist economic and foreign policy. Not so, writes Mark Thornton.
