The free banking debate seems to be a perennially reoccurring event with no resolution in sight. On Twitter, George Selgin recently had a series of tweets and threads again criticizing the “Rothbardian” position on free banking. Although partly due to the limitations of the medium, the description of the Rothbardians’ objections to free banking was less than accurate.

Understanding Money Mechanics
by Robert P. Murphy
Mises Institute, 2021, 210 pp.

Are entrepreneurs made or are they born? With entrepreneurial studies programs popping up at universities around the country one would assume they can be made, like doctors or architects. The reality is the primary quality of an entrepreneur can’t be taught: the stomach to risk everything and keep wanting more.  

Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings. 

This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from covid.

We have a responsibility, once and for all, to reject the ludicrous, ever-shifting narratives underpinning masks as effective impediments to the spread of covid infections.

Neil Sedaka said it best—“breaking up is hard to do.” Ask any sixteen-year-old and they’ll tell you that’s certainly true, but Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) recently made headlines when she suggested not just a breakup, but a “national divorce” on social media.

In this week’s column, I’d like to discuss two arguments Murray Rothbard gives that respond to influential criticisms of the free market. His answers to the two arguments follow a common strategy. In each case, he rejects the key premise of the argument.

Several countries have introduced mandatory “health passes” and made Covid-19 vaccination compulsory since last summer. The vaccination mandates represent a massive infringement of human rights and their medical justification has dwindled over time. Yet, governments are doubling down on their resolution to vaccinate everybody. But, will people accept this abuse and should they let governments decide on individual health matters?

Last month, Colorado governor Jared Polis ended statewide mask mandates and social distancing provisions, stating that “the emergency is over.“ This, of course, does not mean Colorado is now laissez-faire in terms of covid. Public higher education institutions—thanks to Polis’s tacit approval—still have free rein in terms of imposing vaccine and mask mandates and in forcing classes to “go online” whenever the college bureaucrats grow sufficiently alarmed about covid.