Does Oil Require Blood?

The idea that commerce and war are allies is a complete perversion of the old liberal tradition. The first theorists of commerce from the 16th through the 18th centuries saw that a most meritorious aspect of commerce is its link to freedom and peace, that commerce made it possible for people to co-operate rather than fight. It made armaments and war less necessary, not more.

Another Central Plan Fails

Millions of students begin their first day of classes with a profound awareness of the impending make-or-break tests, to be taken at regular intervals from the first to the twelfth grade. On the face of it, writes Jeffrey Tucker, it seemed to work. But reformers forgot one thing: we are dealing here with public school.

What New York Didn’t Need

Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s recent 18% tax hike, despite his promise that next year the hated city income tax will be hiked, another tax increase beyond these is looming on the horizon for New Yorkers. It is a tax increase that is another result of generations of municipal and state mismanagement.

The Demise of the Dollar?

The consequences of a markedly diminished position of the US dollar would be dramatic and of global proportions. While it would affect all economies that are closely related to the US economy, the major impact would fall on the United States itself. A demise of the US dollar as the dominant global currency would mean that the current relation between domestic absorption and production could no longer be maintained.

Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government

Those who claim that government is the source of social order say that in its absence there would be violence, chaos, and a low standard of living. They cite civil wars in Africa, drug wars in South America, or even Gengis Khan in Mongolia. They claim that these things, which are actually examples of competing governments, are what life without government will produce. 

Another common objection to stateless legal enforcement systems is to ask for “just one example of where it has worked.”  

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