Big Government

Infrastructure can be built under freedom because freedom disciplines action. Under coercion, it becomes theater.

Most academic historians claim that big businesses in the US were economy-choking monopolies at the end of the 19th century, and that government was needed to enforce competition. In reality, the government and businesses joined forces to promote monopolies.

Great Britain’s Labour government continues to pursue the ruinous policies of inflation and out-of-control spending, all in the name of promoting economic growth. They will get stagflation instead, and then blame the entire problem on capitalism.

All children eventually learn that the presents under the Christmas tree come from family and friends, who must pay for them with their own money, and not from Santa Claus.

All children eventually learn that the presents under the Christmas tree come from family and friends, who must pay for them with their own money, and not from Santa Claus.

Murray Rothbard properly noted that the predatory state needs its “court intellectuals” to legitimize its predations. American higher education is happy to provide them.

When there is a cascade of failing businesses at one time, it is easy to think of it as an economic contagion that is a by-product of capitalism. Yet, a cluster of business errors can be laid firmly at the feet of government.

For more than 40 years, the Farmland Protection Policy Act has socialized US farmlands and transferred wealth to politically-connected people. What it hasn’t done is protect farmland.

For more than 40 years, US farm policy has socialized farm land and transferred wealth to politically-connected people. 

David Beito’s new biography on Franklin D. Roosevelt is not the hagiographic nonsense that has dominated the US history profession. That is a good thing. Americans should know how FDR’s presidency led to one disaster after another.