Big government, big banks, and big tech are now all on the same side in the war against cash. Government — we all know about already. Big banks — they do not want to see the users of cash in retail transactions (for goods and services) getting keener prices than the users of their electronic payment systems. They use their oligopoly power to suppress as far as possible any such differential emerging (as would be the case in a free market) and so expand the market for their plastic alternative.

With the 2018 Colombian presidential elections rapidly approaching, presidential front-runners Iván Duque and Gustavo Petro face numerous challenges ahead.

Demarchy — also called sortition — is a form of governance that selects the representatives of the people as a random sample from a pool of candidates. Such a governance by selecting the people’s representatives by lottery instead of elections can look back on a venerable history.

As tax day rapidly approaches, we are sure to hear leftists once again admonish us all about how the rich should “pay their fair share” of taxes. Their favorite tool to accomplish this is a highly progressive income tax code, which forces those with higher incomes to pay a greater share of their income to the tax man.

Murray N. Rothbard was the consummate scholar in several fields. From my first meeting with Murray Rothbard, attending Ludwig von Mises seminar at New York University, more than forty years before the sadness of his death, I knew him longest as an economic historian.

In every field, there are many unexplored or partially explored issues that may turn out to be important. But, in all likelihood, they are dead ends.

Someone once defined metaphysics as searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn’t there. For the last 35 years in Washington, I have been searching for rational government policies. And, like that black cat, I’m starting to doubt that it is actually there. 

But what I find on a regular basis is the notion that “Washington knows best.” The arrogance of policymakers is stunning - and it continues regardless of how many debacles they uncork. 

It is a common fallacy, particularly (but not exclusively) among the conservative right, that if a person is successful in business, he or she must have the requisite knowledge to make wise decisions regarding economic policy. This, unfortunately, is dangerously naive.

In his Theory of Money and Credit, Ludwig von Mises argued that