Dr. Richard M. Ebeling is the recently appointed BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. He was formerly professor of Economics at Northwood University, president of The Foundation for Economic Education (2003–2008), was the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College (1988–2003) in Hillsdale, Michigan, and served as vice president of academic affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation (1989–2003).
One of the great voices for personal liberty was that of the British economist and political philosopher, John Stuart Mill. His essay, “On Liberty,” though penned well over 150 years ago, is a classic statement that the individual should be respected in his right of...
Why it would desirable to incorporate a balanced budget amendment into the U.S. Constitution.
All who participate gain from international trade, and all are made poorer to the extent that governments interfere or prohibit the freedom of trade among the peoples of the world.
One of the great myths about the capitalist system is the presumption that businessmen make profits at the expense of the consumers and workers in society. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the free market, consumers are the sovereign rulers who determine...
On October 13th, the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced in Stockholm, Sweden, with French economist, Jean Tirole, the recipient for his work on developing models to better assist governments in regulating private enterprise. A couple of weeks earlier, Reuters...
The history of the Berlin Wall and the collectivist ideology behind it should remind us of how important a loss of any of our freedom can be as we determine in what direction – toward greater individual freedom and free enterprise or more government command and control – we wish our country to move in the 21st century.
Why did the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy of price level stabilization in the 1920s result in the Great Depression of the early 1930s?
For nearly six years, now, you have declared your intention and desire of being my Nanny-in-Chief. Your original campaign slogan of “Hope and Change” was really a promise of “Control and Command.” Well, Mr. President, I have a request: Mind your own business.
Rather than asking the source or origin of that wealth — production or plunder –the egalitarians like Thomas Piketty merely see that some have more wealth than others and condemn such an “unequal distribution,” in itself.
What Europe is moving toward therefore is a constitutional institutionalization of the interventionist-welfare state.
What John Stuart Mill rejected in attempting to redesign society according to this shaky premise of “social utility” was the older tradition upon which the great achievements of winning liberty was based in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the tradition of “natural rights.”
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, the alternative to state regulation is not a regulatory void, but a range of voluntary arrangements.”
The heart of Professor Kirzner’s argument is that every discovery of a new opportunity is the appropriation of that which had not existed before a human mind had seen the potential in that object. And, hence, the profit earned by bringing that opportunity into existence justly belongs to the creator and discoverer.
For the Founding Fathers, economic liberty was inseparable from the case for political freedom.
Winston Churchill once described Russia as a mystery wrapped in an enigma. The election of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s new president for the next five years has in no way diminished this imagery. Groomed in the ranks of the KGB, the Soviet secret police, Putin has...
The revival of Austrian economics during the last 20 years is largely due to the original and numerous contributions of Israel M. Kirzner. Kirzner studied with Ludwig von Mises at New York University starting in the mid 1950s. He recounts in a recent issue of the...
How Nations Grow Rich: The Case for Free Trade by Melvyn Krauss presents the basic principles for a policy of free trade and refutes many of the contemporary arguments for protectionism.
We continue to trade away the modem ideal of individual liberty for the ancient ideal of collective tyranny.
Why is it that an apologist for slavery like George Fitzhugh and a descendant of slaves like Jesse Jackson both abhor the market economy?
The Russian people do have a chance and a future — once Communism is finally relegated to the “dustbin of history.”
China’s turmoil and tragedy are almost certainly far from over.
Sometimes creative understanding and interpretation of the present and the past can offer insightful suggestions about possible developments in the future.
Professor Williams demonstrates is that apartheid is not an example of capitalism but something much more akin to a mercantilist-interventionist state, in which government bestows privileges, favors, and monopoly positions on a select group at the expense of others in the society.
Having forcefully hailed the demise of socialism abroad, the President’s message was that America’s greatness would be assured by more, or at least continued, socialism at home.
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