Freedom Daily Archive

World Economic Forum Wants to Make You a Serf

by James Bovard April 1, 2023

The January meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, should have set off alarms among freedom lovers around the globe. The annual confab of billionaires, political weasels, and deranged activists laid out plans to further repress humanity. But at least the gathering provided plenty of comic relief for people who enjoy elite buffoonery. Self-worship is obligatory in ...

America’s Comeback

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2023

When most Americans hear the word comeback, they immediately think of sports. Whether it is football, basketball, golf, baseball, boxing, or hockey — Americans love a comeback. Like in 2019, when Tiger Woods won the Masters — his first Majors win in 11 years. Like in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs finished the ...

Philip Wicksteed on the Common Sense of Choice and the Market Process

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2023

The British economist Philip H. Wicksteed began his most important work, The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910), with a motto taken from the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): “We all live it, but few of us know what we are living.” Contrary to the classical economists, who had argued that the market value of things was ...

The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 The United States once had the finest health-care system in history. When I was growing up in the 1950s — before Medicare and Medicaid came into existence — medical costs were low and stable. Hardly anyone had major-medical insurance. That’s because they didn’t need it. Going to the doctor was like going to the ...

Biden’s Atrocious Assange Prosecution

by James Bovard March 1, 2023

“A confident government that is unafraid of the truth embraces a free press,” proclaimed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. But he was referring only to the Chinese government crackdown on Hong Kong journalists early last year. Unfortunately, the Biden administration continues rushing to destroy one of the most important truth tellers of our times. Julian Assange has been locked away ...

“Law and Order” and Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2023

The election year of 1968 was a tumultuous one marked by the assassinations of Sen. Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, urban race riots, college antiwar demonstrations, and a Democratic National Convention that saw the Chicago police and the National Guard have violent clashes with protestors. The 1968 election Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon (1913–1994) campaigned on a ...

The Great German and Austrian Inflations, 100 Years Ago

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2023

This year marks the 100th anniversaries of the great German and Austrian inflations that began with the coming of the First World War in 1914 and reached hyperinflationary severity following the war’s end in November 1918. While the German and Austrian inflations were particularly pronounced, all the belligerent countries in the conflict resorted to the monetary printing press to ...

Fed Up with the Fed

by Robert E. Wright March 1, 2023

The Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) began operations in 1914. Thus, many find it difficult to fathom an America without it. Yet as it conducts its own major framework review, everyone, including the Federal Reserve itself, knows that the Fed is unnecessary. Congress could abolish the institution and ...

The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 Among the best examples of the dysfunctional nature of American society are the mass killings that take place on a regular basis. As everyone knows, many of them occur without any rational motive. Someone just decides that he is going to go out and kill a bunch of people. Whenever one of these mass killings ...

Biden Weaponizes Hate to Win Votes

by James Bovard February 1, 2023

Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” President Biden confirmed this axiom in his raging speeches prior to the mid-term congressional elections. Throughout his career, Biden has relied on a two-step routine —first appealing to “our better angels” before demagogically vilifying his opponents. In December 2020, after the Electoral College ...

Republican Déjà Vu

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2023

The year was 1994. A Democratic president had been in the White House for two years. The Democrats controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives. House Republicans issued a document detailing the actions they would take if they gained control of the House. Republicans were projected to win big. A midterm election was held. A red wave then swept ...

The Life and Significance of F. A. Hayek

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2023

Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950 by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, (University of Chicago Press, 2022) People who knew Friedrich A. Hayek before he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 sometimes said that he went through bouts of depression that interrupted his research and writing. Some also said that he could be aloof and distant when ...