The Environmentalist Noose Is Tightening
Forty-Five nations joined France in calling for a new environmental body to slow global warming and protect the planet, a body that potentially could have policing powers to punish violators.—AP, Feb.
Pascal Salin: Gentleman, Economist, Radical
J.G. Hulsmann writes on Pascal Salin, the author of eleven books, dozens of scholarly papers, and hundreds of articles in which he explains and develops economic science and courageously advocates individual liberty. Throughout his career, he has earned great distinctions and gained enthusiastic followers, not least of all because his patent intellectual prowess combines with the elegant civility of a gentleman of the old French school. On the occasion of his approaching retirement, colleagues, friends, former students, and admirers from all over the world have just published a festschrift in his honor.
The Mythology of Capital
Lincoln: His Words
One of the dangers facing anyone who has come to believe in a certain philosophy or approach is the temptation to ignore or reject useful contributions from those not “pure” enough in their adherence to those principles. Believers in liberty face this particularly starkly with those whose actions contradict their alleged devotion to human freedom.
Vaccinations by the state
Reichsführer Perry is mad with power. How else can you explain his executive order mandating that Texas girls ages 11 and 12 receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine before entering the sixth grade starting in September 2008?
The principled Libertarian view is that Perry’s order is an aggression on the bodies of these young girls. But, of course, all forms of compulsory vaccination are an aggression on the body of those vaccinated against their will.
Literature and the “Class War”
[Editor’s Note: This essay, a prescient blast at the then growing problem of Marxism in literary criticism, was published as an appendix in Henry Hazlitt’s 1933 book The Anatomy of Criticism: A Trialogue. The same arguments, of course, apply to claims used in criticism that certain literature is worthless because it supports “the patriarchy” or other modern stand-ins for “the bourgeoisie.”]
Wal-Mart, Unions Unite on Socialized Medicine
Actually, the headline reads: “Wal-Mart, Unions Unite on Health Care.” For years Wal-Mart has been falsely accused of shifting the cost of health care for its employees to taxpayers because the company’s high premiums and deductibles keep many Wal-Mart employees from participating in the company health plan—as if Wal-Mart is to blame for the welfare state instead of Congress. Wal-Mart has thrown in the towel:
The Democrats and their Doomed Ideology
Llewellyn H. Rockwell discusses what the Democratic Party, at the national level, really believes. It’s not socialism of the old sort. But the socialist theory of society still burns brightly. Their model is that in the state of nature, meaning in a state of freedom, all is conflict and cruelty. Pathology and ugliness are everywhere. The government is necessary to step in at every level of society to resolve these otherwise intractable conflicts and manage our way into the new epoch of human well-being. Then they ask us--the incompetent, pathological, unenlightened masses--to vote for them.
The Anatomy of Criticism, by Henry Hazlitt
Odds are that you have never heard of this book, much less own it, for it is exceedingly rare and I’ve hardly ever seen a mention of it, though it is just brilliant. It is The Anatomy of Criticism: A Trialogue, by Henry Hazlitt. It is now available for free download or in print on demand. (And it was a big sacrifice to give up my personal copy for the sake of the common good here!)
Trade Deficits and Fiat Currencies
In my opinion, given the current political and cultural climate, the two biggest threats to economic liberty are environmentalism and trade protectionism.
