The Free Market 20, no. 5 (May 2002)

We are inundated by the forces of malevolence and deceit: terrorists, lying CEOs, stock hustlers, power-mad politicians, conniving regula­tors, conspiring pressure groups, and paid-off pundits. They seem to be everywhere. Revelations about Enron and its political connections remind us that even the business world is horribly tainted by graft, special favors, blackmail, quid pro quos, duplicity, and dissembling. The government is the worst offender, of course, but apart from God Himself, whom or what can you trust?

The Free Market 20, no. 5 (May 2002)

The monetary situation in Argentina is a glaring example of confiscatory deflation. In 1992, after yet another bout of hyperinflation, Argentina pegged its new currency, the peso, to the US dollar at the rate of 1-to-1. In order to maintain this fixed peso/dollar peg, the Argentine central bank pledged to freely exchange dollars for pesos on demand and to back its own liabilities, consisting of peso notes and commercial bank reserve deposits denominated in pesos, almost 100 percent by dollars. 

The Free Market 20, no. 6 (June 2002)

The Free Market 20, no. 6 (June 2002)

The Free Market 20, no. 6 (June 2002)

Corruption breeds poverty. That is the conclusion of the latest World Development Report, in which the World Bank cites “evidence that higher levels of corruption are associated with lower per capita income” (World Bank, 2002). The story told is that bribes raise the costs of doing business, so more corrupt countries attract less foreign direct investment, which lowers growth rates and per capita incomes. 

The Free Market 20, no. 7 (July 2002)

Economic life is an intricate global system of exchange, one that works without any central direction. It generates prosperity and its own form of order within the framework of liberty. This is what is sometimes termed the magic of the marketplace, and we should never under-estimate its power. We can see by looking south to Argentina how a failing economy, one thrown into shock by bad legislation and monetary policy, has destroyed the livelihoods of the entire population. 

The Free Market 20, no. 7 (July 2002)

Emerson once observed that nature is a never-ending combination and repetition of a few laws that create countless variations in different times and places. He called it the “unity of cause, the variety of appearance.”

The Free Market 20, no. 7 (July 2002)

As the war on terror drags on, many people calling themselves libertarians have decided that it’s not such a bad thing after all. What, they ask, is the point of government if not to bomb those who would threaten our safety? The trouble is that real life works a little differently from the civics-text ideal of government. Government uses war—and sometimes foments it—in order to expand its power over its own people or to expand its imperial power. 

The Free Market 20, no. 7 (August 2002)

The June 3, 2002, issue of The Nation heralds the 2001 Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz as a “rebel with a cause.” That characterization is certainly a stretch for an economist, who is former senior vice president of the World Bank and who adheres to orthodox Keynesian doctrine, the dominant economic paradigm of mainstream political and economic theory for the past 50 years.

The Free Market 20, no. 7 (August 2002)

During a recent debate with Harry Jaffa on the topic of my book, The Real Lincoln, Jaffa invoked the Lincoln mythology to declare that September 11 “proves” more than ever that we need a strong federal government.