Freedom Daily Archive

Book Review: Economic Freedom and Interventionalism

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1991

Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology of Articles and Essays by Ludwig von Mises (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1990); 250 pages; $29.95-cloth; $14.95-paper. Ludwig von Mises is quite possibly the greatest economist of the 20th century. He was one of a handful of important thinkers in our time who consistently and incessantly warned of the dangers of ...

FDR and the End of Economic Liberty

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1991

The watershed years were 1932-1937 — the first two presidential terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was the crucial period in American history — the period in which Americans abandoned the principles of economic liberty on which our nation was founded. For it was during this time that the welfare-state, ...

From the New Mercantilism to Economic Fascism

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1991

February 1991 saw the release of the latest annual Economic Report of The President. Prepared by the President's Council of Economic Advisors, the report is meant to provide a detailed summary of where the American economy has been during the past twelve months and to offer various projections as to where the economy is heading for the next twelve ...

The Farm Program Fiasco

by Dominick T. Armentano August 1, 1991

All government programs are sacred cows. Once taxpayers fund anything, a vocal constituency develops to assert that the nation could not survive another day without the program. This is one reason why the 1990 deficit-reduction package did not cut one program or one bureaucrat or even one penny from total federal spending.

The Road Ahead

by John T. Flynn August 1, 1991

We must now go back to fundamentals. Our fathers gave to the world the sublime example of statesmen who had found the means of casting off the tyrant State and building up the sovereign people — unleashing the energies of free men. It was this historic experiment which set off that astonishing surge of human energy which created here ...

Book Review: Russia’s Last Capitalists

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1991

Russia's Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921-1929 by Alan M. Ball (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); 226 pages; $11.95. In 1921, Russia was in a state of economic and social collapse. The country had undergone three years of the First world war — between 1914 and 1917. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks, under Lenin's leadership, overthrew the Provisional Government that had ruled ...

Players and Pawns: The Persian Gulf War

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 1991

For the greater part of this century, the United States government has plundered, looted, and terrorized the American people through the Internal Revenue Service. It has surreptitiously stolen people's income and savings through the Federal Reserve System. It has brutally enforced — through fines and imprisonment — rules and regulations governing people's peaceful economic activities. In a very real ...

A New World Order: Economic Liberalism or the New Mercantilism

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1991

In the days immediately following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the Bush Administration declared that a vital interest of the United States was at stake. American economic wellfbeing was threatened by Iraqi control of the Kuwaiti oil fields. However, when a growing number of economists pointed out that the U.S. economy had the capacity to adjust ...

Some Other Costs of War

by Robert Higgs July 1, 1991

War always increases State power over the economy, and the Gulf war is no exception. Thus one of President Bush's first actions was, by executive fiat, to give himself total control over any corporation or industry, if he deems it necessary for the war effort. He can now requisition what he wants, without regard ...

We’d Rather Fight

by Lannon Stafford July 1, 1991

We're a peace-loving people — everybody says so. Well, maybe not everybody, but we sure say so. Hardly a week goes by without one of our national leaders referring to Americans as a peace-loving people. What can they be thinking of? In the past fifty years, we have fought four major wars; that is, wars that ...

Book Review: The Hidden Nations

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1991

The Hidden Nations: The People Challenge the Soviet Union by Nadia Diuk and Adrian Karatnycky (New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc. 1990); 284 pages; $22.95. Many of the "captive nations" of central and eastern Europe reclaimed their freedom in 1989 and 1990. Non-communist democratic governments were elected in Poland, Czechoslovakia ...

Locking Out the Immigrant

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 1991

America of the 1800s was the most unique society in the history of man. People could engage in virtually any economic enterprise without permission of their public officials. People could become as wealthy as they want, and there was nothing the government could do about it. They could dispose of their ...