How and why governments have used the power of issuing official travel documents as a means of restricting the free movement of people during the last 200 years.
Richard M. Ebeling
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).
Jean-Baptiste Say, Capitalism and Say’s “Law of Markets”
Say’s Law of Markets already included the answers to the questions against free markets with which the Keynesians attempted to challenge the efficacy of capitalism a century later.
NBA Kneeling To China Demonstrates That Freedom of Speech is Imposible Without a Free Market
The difference between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is that Donald cannot command companies doing business with the NFL to stop doing so until every football player who has kneeled during the national anthem publicly apologize for “offending the American people.” Chi…
Interventionism: An Economic Analysis by Ludwig Von Mises
Interventions inevitably generate imbalances in the market that will force the government to either repeal the existing interventions or extend them in the futile attempt to use new interventions to compensate for the distortions its prior interventions have created, un…
Say’s Law and the Keynesian Revolution: How Macroeconomic Theory Lost Its Way by Steven Kates
Steven Kates refutes Keynes’s caricature of the classical economists. Ultimately it is always goods that are traded for goods. Say’s Law, properly understood, explains both what causes unemployment and how to solve it..
My Life as an Austrian Economist and a Classical Liberal
Ayn Rand’s writings brought about an ethical and practical revolution in my thinking
Price Controls Attack the Freedom of Speech
We increasingly live in a new “dark age” of economic ignorance, and even stupidity. Few things exemplify this trend as much as the call for price controls over the interactions of multitudes of people in the marketplace of supply and demand. There are few government...
History of the Monopolization of Welfare by the State
Throughout the 19th century, a primary means for the provision of what today we call the “social safety nets” was by the private sector outside of government.
Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action: Marking 70 Years of Continuing Relevance
Mises’s brilliant treatise continues to be read and taken seriously as a cornerstone for understanding the nature of the free society and the workings of the market economy.
“L’etat C’est Moi”: The Presidency of Donald Trump
It was French king Louis XIV who declared, “L’etat c’est moi” (“I am the state”), indicating his insistence that he possessed absolute power over his subjects. This attitude is shared by Donald Trump, president of the United States.
How Much Damage Will Come from this Trade War?
First, the good news: the U.S. and world economies have not imploded, so far, as fallout from the rising trade tensions between the Trump administration and Xi Jinping’s government in China. Now, the bad news: there is no certainty that this will not play itself out...
Hazony’s Tradition-Based Society Is Social Engineering
At any moment in time, the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Manners are missing; ethics are being eliminated; culture is corrupted; social attitudes are supercilious; virtues are vanishing; literature is mostly licentious; industry and commerce are...
Capitalism is the Solution to the Problem of “Asymmetric Information”
It is capitalism and the competitive market process that generates solutions to the knowledge problems of the society, including the “informational asymmetry” that naturally follows from any developed social system of division of labor.
Like Socialism, Conservative Nationalism Is Not About Liberty
American “nationalism,” if we are to call it this, is neither identity-politics socialism nor this newly proclaimed “conservative” national socialism. It was, and should be, an allegiance to individual liberty and unlimited economic freedom of trade and associat…
The Let-Alone Principle
“[T]he political system is most conducive to the public good in which the rightful liberty of the individual is least abridged.”
Democratic Party “Progressive” Promises and the Cost To Liberty
Keep in mind what “progressive” means in this political context: an increase in the size, scope, and cost of government in American society.
The Real Spirit of the Declaration of Independence
What is America, and what does it represent?
Laissez-Faire Capitalism: A Declaration of Independence from Statism
The Declaration of Independence, proclaimed by members of the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, is the founding document of the American experiment in free government. What is too often forgotten is that what the Founding Fathers argued against in the Declaration wa…
Austrian Economics on the 45th Anniversary of Its Rebirth
This June marks the 45th anniversary of the revival of the Austrian School of Economics. During the week of June 15-22, 1974, the Institute for Humane Studies brought together about 50 people in South Royalton, Vermont to listen to a series of lectures by three of the...
Growing Debt, Budget Deficits and the Cost of Free Lunches
It seems that every generation or two, fundamental economic ideas are questioned and challenged. The reasonable and important idea that governments should balance their budgets on an annual basis was challenged in the 1930s by the rise of Keynesian Economics and the...
Donald Trump: America’s Economic Commissar of Trade
Besides making Americans poorer than they otherwise need to be due to Trump’s tariff wars, the president has arrogantly used executive authority to arbitrarily impose higher import taxes (or their threat) at his own discretion and whim.
Professor Stigiltz’s “Progressive Capitalism” is Neo-Socialism
If there is one common enemy that all opponents of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government seemingly can agree upon it is the “evil” of neo-liberalism. Everything that is hated in an open, competitive market society is summed into that word and...
The Battle Over America: Individual Freedom Versus Democratic Statism
The idea that there was a time in American history when many more matters of daily life were considered the domain of personal decision-making and voluntary collaborative community effort has mostly been erased from people’s memory. We live in a time when an...
The Plague of Political Busbybodies
The end goal of our planning paternalists is the command economy, the government-directed market, with all businesses required to follow the planner’s investment and employment directives and, presumably, be subject to some type of punishment if the imposed targets...
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