Thanks to Contrpoints for the French translation of Robert Higgs’s article that appeared here. See: Les bases de la domination étatique et de la soumission populaire

By Sterling T. Terrell 

Maybe better access to quality food leads to obesity and related health problems for much of the developed world.  That, however, is a non-issue for the bulk of nations and people that lack access to quality food. My question is:  On average, would a more open nation lead to better food access, quality, etc.?

Like Peter Lewin, Walter Block, Mario Rizzo, and Peter Boettke, I greatly admire the late Gary Becker, a pioneer in many areas of e

…newspapers buzzed with the news that former Secretary of State Richard Olney declined President Woodrow Wilson’s request that he serve as the first head of the newly-created Federal Reserve Board.

…newspapers buzzed with the news that former Secretary of State Richard Olney declined President Woodrow Wilson’s request that he serve as the first head of the newly-created Federal Reserve Board.

Some 27 years ago, I spent two weeks in Yugoslavia, the supposed workers’ paradise cobbled together by the strong arm of Marshal Tito. And, if my memory serves, the country was an overflowing candy store — a middle schooler’s sweet-toothed delight. Socialism as a candy store? Sure. But you have to consider the question and its answer in context.

Gary Becker passed away on May 4, 2014 at age 83. There will be many obituaries written about this Nobel Prize winning economist, focusing on his numerous and important contributions to the dismal science. Here, instead, I will tell a more personal story, my own private interactions with my first mentor, Gary Becker.

Murray Rothbard once noted that “One of the most common charges leveled against the free market is that it reflects and encourages unbridled ‘selfish materialism’…it distracts man from higher ideals. It leads man away from spiritual or intellectual values and atrophies any spirit of altruism.”

Ludwig von Mises may have laid out the issue even more clearly in Liberalism.

By Ron Paul

Last week World Bank economists predicted that China would soon displace the United States as the world’s largest economy. The fact that this one-time economic basket case is now positioned to surpass the US is one more sign of the damage done to American prosperity by welfare, warfare, corporatism, and fiat money.

Do you remember the Sixties? I do, vividly.