After briefly topping $94 this morning. 

Wherever one observes the transformation of society into one where access to economic opportunity is increasingly contingent upon credentials, one sees the unmistakable hallmark of state interference with the spontaneous order of the market. The moment violence interposes itself between man and his capacity to labor, trade, and create, he no longer lives in a market but under a system of privilege. Protection, in the statist sense, is not about safeguarding the individual; it is about disabling him.

As a “stealth tax,” inflation requires no legislation to impose, no agency to collect, and diverts responsibility for damages onto politicians’ favorite whipping boys. It gives government the ability to buy almost anything for nothing, while creating endless problems that serve as a pretext for intervention. Inflation is the foundation of arrogant government and a prescription for our own demise.

Through the 1600s, the English established colonies along the North American coast. Of course, these colonies shared much in common: shared language, shared appreciation for English citizenship and rights, and a shared commitment to Protestant Christianity (though, with different denominational and traditional commitments). But, it is worth considering just how different these colonies were.

As Étienne de la Boétie pointed out, the state is absolutely dependent on ideological support, without which it could not even command an army to force obedience from the public.

David Hart, former head of the Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty Project, continues to build new archives of important documents from the history of liberalism. This includes new additions to the Leveller archives. the Levellers, according to Rothbard, were “the world’s first self-consciously libertarian movement.” Indeed, one frequently sees the influence of the Levellers in the American Revolution and documents like the Bill of Rights.  

Hart writes:

Grizzly bears are no where near being truly “endangered” yet they continue to receive federal protection. 

Eric Winsberg’s recent paper on “bureaucratic science” is a gift to anyone who’s spent the last few years watching “The Science™” harden into a credentialed priesthood with a budget, a comms shop, and a taste for policing dissent. Winsberg’s core move is to treat pandemic-era “gatekeeping” not as a mysterious moral lapse or a one-off emergency overreach, but as the predictable output of institutional incentives—exactly the sort of thing public choice theory was built to explain.