[An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Dr. Floy Lilley, is available for download, or you can listen to it within this page.]

In his “Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal” (1968), Murray Rothbard wrote,

President Bush began his second term with a big push for “Social Security privatization.” I put the words in quotes to point out that neither his plan, nor any mainstream plan, is actual privatization. What he proposed was the gradual replacement of a publicly funded welfare program — those premiums you pay are really just taxes — with a mandatory private scheme.

[The Lou Church Memorial Lecture in Religion and Economics at the 2008 Austrian Scholars Conference at the Mises Institute. An MP3 audio version of this talk is available for download. You can see the video here.]

Remember the president’s scheme to “privatize” Social Security? (I put the word in quotes to point out that the plan was never actual privatization.) Let’s say Bush had actually achieved his goal of creating private accounts that you are forced to contribute to, and a sizable swath of the American public had invested in safe mutual funds spread across many sectors. What would have been the result?

Despite being “virtually an asterisk in history books today,” in one writer’s words, John Adams is the subject of a new $100 million HBO miniseries. Given his leading role in America’s Revolution and the beginnings of Constitutional government, Adams deserves the renewed attention. John Adams wrote a Stamp Act protest that became a model for other protests. He outlined principles of liberty for Americans on the cusp of independence.