Free Trade, Managed Trade and the State, Part 4 by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1993 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 "The Protectionist creed rises like a weed in every soil," lamented the English classical economist Walter Bagehot in the 1880s. "Every nation wishes prosperity for some conspicuous industry. At what cost to the consumer, by what hardship to less conspicuous industries, that prosperity is obtained, it does not care. Indeed, it hardly knows, it will not read, it will never apprehend the refined reasons which prove those evils and show how great they are; the visible picture of the smoking chimneys absorbs the whole mind." While the imagery of the smoking chimney may be inconsistent with the environmental consciousness of the Clinton administration, Bagehot's lament can be echoed in our own times in terms of the mindset that dominates the thinking of the president and those who design policy options in the departments in Washington. Their conception of managed trade focuses upon the ...
Serfs on the Plantation, Part 4 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1993 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 David Koresh and his followers challenged the cult of the omnipotent state. And for that, they paid the ultimate price — death at the hands of United States governmental officials. The message was a powerful one for American serfs: "As long as you behave and obey, everything will be fine; but dare to challenge us, and you will pay the price." The cult of the omnipotent state has millions of followers in the United States. Americans of today view their government in the same way as Christians view their God: they worship and adore the state, and they render their lives and fortunes to it. Statists believe that their lives — their very being — are a privilege that the state has given to them. They believe that everything they do is — and should be — dependent on the consent of the government. Thus, statists support ...
Book Review: Second Thoughts by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1993 Second Thoughts: Myths and Morals of U.S. Economic History edited by Donald N. McCloskey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); 208 pages; $24.95. In his introduction to the 1954 book Capitalism and the Historians , Friedrich A. Hayek pointed out that "past experience is the foundation on which our beliefs about the desirability of different policies and institutions are based. . . . Yet, if it is too pessimistic a view that man learns nothing from history, it may well be questioned whether he always learns the truth. . . . Historical myths have perhaps played nearly as great a role in shaping opinion as historical facts. . . . The influence which writers of history thus exercise on public opinion is probably more immediate and extensive than that of the political theorists who launch new ideas. ...
Book Review: Prices & Knowledge by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1993 Prices & Knowledge: A Market-Process Perspective by Esteban F. Thomsen (New York: Routledge, 1992); 150 pages. In spite of the repudiation of Soviet-style socialist central planning, the free market has not triumphed. A good part of the reason for this is the ideological prejudice of our times. The entire world in the 20th century has swallowed the socialist critique of capitalism. ...
Book Review: Hayek and the Keynesian Avalanche by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1993 Hayek and the Keynesian Avalanche by Brian McCormick (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992); 289 pages; $59.95. In England in the 1930s, there were two opposing schools of economic thought concerning the causes, consequences and cures of the Great Depression. One was headquartered at the London School of Economics, with the ...
Book Review: Welfare Economics and Externalities in an Open Ended Universe by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1993 Welfare Economics and Externalities in an Open Ended Universe: A Modern Austrian Perspective by Roy E. Cordato (Boston: Kluwer Academic Press, 1992); 140 pages. Classical liberals and libertarians have traditionally argued that government should be limited to certain essential functions for the sake of social order: police protection against domestic criminals, military force for security against foreign aggression, and a court ...
The Failure of Socialism and Lessons for America, Part 1 by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 1993 Part 1 | Part 2 The world is watching the spectacle of Russia and the other captive nations of the former Soviet Union trying to free themselves from their seventy-five-year experiment in socialism. The bankruptcy of the system is accepted by practically everyone. The economies of the former Soviet republics are in shambles. Civil wars and ethnic violence have ...
Individual Liberty and Civil Society by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1993 In 1819, the French classical liberal, Benjamin Constant, delivered a lecture in Paris entitled, "The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Modems." He drew his audience's attention to the fact that in the world of ancient Greece, "the aim of the ancients was the sharing of power among the citizens of the fatherland: this is ...
Individual Liberty and Civil Society by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 1993 In 1819, the French classical liberal, Benjamin Constant, delivered a lecture in Paris entitled, "The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Modems." He drew his audience's attention to the fact that in the world of ancient Greece, "the aim of the ...
America’s Wars and the Los Angeles Riots, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 1993 Part 1 | Part 2 Whether the jury's verdict in the Rodney King case was a miscarriage of justice is beside the point. The real point is the shocking reaction to the verdict by many in the black and Hispanic communities. No mereacquittal can engender the response that was manifested in Los Angeles. The anger and outrage of the ...
The Rise, Fall, and Renaissance of Classical Liberalism, Part 3: The 20th Century by Ralph Raico December 1, 1992 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The First World War was the watershed of the twentieth century. Itself the product of antiliberal ideas and policies, such as militarism and protectionism, the Great War fostered statism in every form. In Europe and America, the trend towards state intervention accelerated, as governments conscripted, censored, inflated, ran up mountains ...
