Herbert Spencer, Freedom, and Empire

Herbert Spencer was born into a nineteenth-century world where the traditional logic of imperialism interacted with new developments like the Industrial Revolution, and new ideas like free trade and liberalism that emerged out of the Enlightenment of the previous century. The key to understanding Spencer’s importance is to realize that he was a radical proponent of laissez faire, individualism, natural rights, and capitalism.

Intergenerational Transfers and Political Support for the Welfare State

Supporters of the welfare state might see it as a mechanism for transferring income from rich to poor with the idea of helping those at the bottom end of the income distribution, but in the United States, the welfare state is increasingly transferring income from the young to the old, regardless of the wealth or income of the transfer recipients.

Walter Block vs. Nobel Prize Winning Economists Friedman & Coase

Walter Block – The Errors of Friedman, Coase & Buchanan [Australian Mises Seminar 2012]. Here I speak at Mises University 2012. My lecture is about Friedman’s positive externalities’ argument of public schools, his broken window fallacy concerning WWII, the tradable emission rights, Friedman’s road socialism. I talk about the flexible exchange rates. I go on with Friedman on eminent domain, democracy and anti-trust. I also viciously attack Coase’s Lighthouse article and his anti-property rights beliefs and more!