Yellow Journalism at the Weekly Standard

Critics of the welfare-warfare state are no fans of the magazine The Weekly Standard, writes Robert Murphy. Bill Kristol and its other regular contributors are among the most hawkish of neoconservatives out there. Yet these “right wingers” are also bad on economics too, Today’s case study is Irwin Stelzer’s recent piece, “Worry About OPEC, Not China.” Although international trade can get complicated, especially when fiat currencies are involved, Stelzer manages to pack an impressive amount of nonsense into a fairly short article.

The Downside of the “Tea Party”

As the tea from the shattered chests of the famed Boston “Tea Party” began to darken the waters of Boston Harbor that night in 1773, writes Joseph Potts, a protectionist virus infiltrated the moral bloodstream of the embryonic nation that became America. It was effective political protest but dangerous economics. After all, it amounted to the destruction of private property that denied to consumers access to valuable goods to which the attacking gang had not the slightest claim of ownership.

The Great Can Opener Gap

I’m sick of our economic whiners and their tear-stained statistics. “Ten Million American children go to bed hungry every night.” Baloney, thick sliced and ready for your intellectual palate! Who believes such falsification? Were it true, fifty million Americans, given the generosity of Americans, would announce a bedtime snack program. “Kid, if you’re hungry come by my house — or better yet, I’ll bring by a couple pieces of fried chicken with a side of fries. Total cost: about 40 cents in my kitchen.

We Need an Angel Like Clarence

Lew Rockwell writes: As the war drags on and the state expands its reach in nearly every area of life, I’m detecting another moment of despair sweeping through libertarian ranks. Why aren’t all our efforts making a difference? What are we doing wrong? Are we just wasting our time with our publications, conferences, scholarships, editorials, vast web presence, recruitments of thousands of young people? Have our educational efforts ever made any difference?We need an angel like Clarence to show us that world that might have been.

The Socialism of Mr. Shaw

In this previously unavailable essay, Albert Jay Nock examines the politics of George Bernard Shaw. “Mr. Shaw is a Socialist. In his view the extreme of collectivist Statism is a cure for all ills, like the old grandmother’s pennyroyal. In politics it will abolish the party system, simplify procedures, and ensure the keeping of good and capable men in office. Mr. Shaw’s State will establish equality of income, provide the right kind of education for children, settle the land-question, control production and distribution, keep everybody at work, and so forth and so on; and all in the public interest. Mr. Shaw unsparingly diagnoses the various ills to which the body politic is heir; his diagnosis is complete and correct; and for each and every ill he prescribes the one remedy — State action. “
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