Free Market

Right-to-Work Laws and the Modern Classical-Liberal Tradition

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2013

It’s not widely known, but an earlier generation of libertarians condemned so-called right-to-work laws as anti-market. For example, Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom, compared right-to-work to anti-discrimination laws. Ayn Rand also opposed right-to-work laws. The Spring 1966 issue of the libertarian student-run journal New Individualist Review carried Prof. Hirschel Kasper’s article “What’s Wrong with Right-to-Work Laws.” NIR was ...

Women, Discrimination, and a Free Society

by Laurence M. Vance January 2, 2013

For the first time in its history, South Korea has elevated a woman to the office of president. Newly elected Park Geun-hye is the daughter of the president and dictator Park Chung-hee, who ruled the country from 1961 until his assassination in 1979. During her presidential campaign, she pledged to increase government aid to single parents, expand maternity and paternity ...

TGIF: Right-to-Work Laws and the Modern Classical-Liberal Tradition

by Sheldon Richman December 14, 2012

It’s not widely known, but an earlier generation of libertarians condemned so-called right-to-work laws as anti-market. For example, Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom, compared right-to-work to anti-discrimination laws. Ayn Rand also opposed right-to-work laws. The Spring 1966 issue of the libertarian student-run journal New Individualist Review carried Professor Hirschel Kasper’s article “What’s Wrong with ...

Two Extraordinary African-American Entrepreneurs

by Wendy McElroy December 1, 2012

As the 19th century neared its end, two African-American women became rivals as they became millionaires in the beauty-care industry. Annie Turnbo Pope Malone and Madam (Sarah) C.J. Walker were wildly successful entrepreneurs at a time when both blacks and women were marginalized by society. Annie and Sarah broke racial and sexual barriers; they created economic independence for an ...

Look for the Union Liable

by Wendy McElroy November 27, 2012

Unions are now more empowered and more desperate. They feel empowered because a radically pro-union president has been elected for a second term. An Investor’s Business Daily headline (Nov. 21) proclaimed, “With Obama Win, Big Labor Feels Its Oats.” The article explained, Unions are feeling their oats after the re-election of President Obama. It’s comparable to the perception ...

Thanksgiving, Socialism, and the Free Market (2008)

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 22, 2012

This article was originally published in November 2008. As Barack Obama prepares to assume the presidency, it would be appropriate today to remember that the original Thanksgiving celebrated the demise of the “spread-the-wealth” economic system that the colonists at Plymouth Rock initially established. The story ...

The Goal Is Freedom: Love the Market?

by Sheldon Richman November 16, 2012

Libertarians are sometimes accused of being “market fundamentalists,” and there’s a sense in which I will plead guilty to the charge (though I have multiple criticisms to offer of the Longview Institute’s “vulgar liberal” take on the subject). Libertarians certainly have great esteem for “the market” — but our esteem is rooted in reason and ...

Don’t Call for an Ambulance

by Laurence M. Vance August 21, 2012

The two recent high-profile and highly deadly shootings in the United States have been the occasion of much dialogue about “gun control.” Liberals, predictably, have generally called for more and stricter gun-control laws. Conservatives, to their credit, have generally argued to the contrary (even though they have accepted decades of various federal gun-control laws that make a mockery of the ...

Romney and Bain Capital

by Sheldon Richman May 25, 2012

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is essentially playing one card in his quest for Barack Obama’s job: his business experience taught him how economies work. But Romney’s own pitch raises doubts about this. The Obama campaign charges Romney with destroying jobs when he ran Bain Capital, undercutting Romney’s claim he was a job creator. Obama argues that Bain created only ...

The Enclosure Acts and the Industrial Revolution

by Wendy McElroy March 8, 2012

They hang the man, and flog the woman, That steals the goose from off the common; But let the greater villain loose, That steals the common from the goose. — English folk poem An understanding of the Enclosure Acts is necessary to place aspects of the Industrial Revolution in their proper context. The Industrial Revolution is often accused of driving poor laborers en ...

In Praise of Parallel Institutions

by Wendy McElroy December 8, 2011

Globalization has been a buzzword for decades. The word has competing definitions: It can refer to the reduction of barriers to trade and travel, which allows goods, ideas, and people to act as though the world is one free-flowing community. But it can also refer to the centralization of power into a nexus from which policy decisions are broadcast ...

Economic Liberty and Its Abandonment, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 With federal spending continuing to soar out of control, the obvious question arises: How do we get our nation back on the right track — toward economic prosperity and economic liberty? To answer that question, it’s helpful to examine basic principles, including the founding principles of our nation and how our country turned away ...