In the previous installment of this column, I discussed Walter Block’s repeated defense of “voluntary slavery contracts” as one example of his long record of defending economic phenomena as “voluntary,” regardless of the role of background or systemic violence in making them possible. But it didn’t stop there. Consider his defenses, just within the past…

Randy Barnett is arguably on the short list of the libertarians most influential in American public life. His legal scholarship has informed challenges to state power in the courts; indeed, he himself has argued before the Supreme Court. He has been an active participant in intra-libertarian theoretical debates for decades. And his book The Structure of…

In one sense, Walter Block is very much in the tradition of right-libertarian and anarcho-capitalist polemics, insofar as he hides power relationships and coercive institutions behind a facade of “free exchange” and “voluntary contract.” In another, however, he is much worse. Anarcho-capitalists, traditionally, have focused on convincing the average person that a stateless regime centered…

Recently there has been much fear surrounding the legalization of child labor in many states, but could legalizing child labor actually be a good thing? After all, the labor movement fought long and hard to ban child labor to protect children from exploitation. But some youth liberationists are challenging this perspective. According to NPR: In…

There’s a certain kind of right-wing culture warrior — a disproportionate number of whom call themselves “libertarians” — who seems to be confused about what an actual “free marketplace of ideas” is. Self-described “free speech absolutists” of this sort never stop avowing their fondness for John Stuart Mill, and proclaiming their belief that “the cure…

At Reason, Christian Britschgi (“Do Not Under Any Circumstances Nationalize Greyhound”) celebrates America’s “extensive network of private, for-profit (and profitable) intercity bus services primarily serving lower-income people” as “a great example of how the free market can provide an essential service without public subsidies.” There are a lot of questionable, or outright ahistorical, assumptions implicit…

The Freeman is back to its “best available option” defense of sweatshops and child labor (“What Many Critics of Child Labor Overlook”).  It treats public outrage over the presence of child labor in the supply chains of Western corporations as a demonstration of “how economic illiteracy has seeped into the minds of Western media and…

At The Freeman, Cody Cook asks “Was Jesus a Friend to Big Business?” He begins by quoting several of the many prima facie condemnations of the wealthy in the Gospels, and notes their troubling implications for the sort of libertarianism (pro-wealthy, pro-business, and pro-big business) both he and The Freeman represent. With such strong statements…

Eric Boehm’s article “Biden is Pandering to the 1 Percent: Union Manufacturing Workers” deserves an award. Unfortunately, the award is for Most Disingenuous Ever Reason Article Not Written By Robby Soave.   Union manufacturing workers, Boehm crows, are a “mere sliver of the country’s workers.” Further, “one of the biggest disconnects between reality and our political…

I haven’t talked much about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine since it occurred, mostly just sharing Ukrainian voices and chastising a now former friend for calling for a NATO enforced no fly zone (e.g. shooting down a nuclear power’s planes). There’s something grotesque about the way slaughter can be turned into posturing discourse among the comfortable…

…along with a lot of other things. Back in November, at Future of Freedom, Jacob Hornberger wrote: “America’s welfare state way of life is based on the notion that the federal government is needed to force people to be good and caring to others.” To which I responded:  Um, no. America’s welfare state way of…

The Poverty of Right-Libertarian Cliches Right-libertarians, it seems, have a love affair with Garrett Hardin and his so-called “tragedy of the commons.” It’s a principle to which they return, time and again. But as a foundation, it is historically illiterate; and the structure which they erect upon it is conceptually incoherent. Take, for example, Saul…

Ben Burgis and the Analytical Marxist Critique of Dialectics The title of this essay recalls the Congressional hearing that took place on December 5, 2023, in which Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, seemed to dodge difficult questions by uttering the phrase “it depends on the context.” The phrase immediately became meme-able, even the…

All Landlords Are Terrible Landlords As an object lesson in support of his thesis that “government is a terrible landlord,” Steven Greenhut (Reason, Dec. 1) recounts his experience trying to get action from his county government over complaints of a poorly maintained, overgrown vacant lot owned by the fire department.  I started making calls to…

Before I share my story, let me make something unequivocally clear: Western governments are currently aiding and abetting the mass murder of Palestinians by an extremist Israeli government expressing clear genocidal intent. I have very little leverage in this world, but it would be a moral failure to ignore this reality and not do everything…

At Real Clear Markets, John Tamny — FreedomWorks Vice President and Director of the FreedomWorks Center for Economic Freedom — manages to fit an impressive number of fallacious talking points into one column. FreedomWorks, as you might know, is the outfit founded by Dick Armey — the crook extraordinaire who (along with fellow dumpster fires…

An October 22 article by Konstantin Kisin at The Free Press — a publication founded by Bari Weiss, a pony whose one trick is anti-“woke” culture war theatrics — immediately went viral. Its popularity on the Right is suggested by the fact that its title, “The Day the Delusions Died,” trended on Twitter the following…

Or, How States Create Their Own Enemies You may or may not be familiar with the concept of “blowback.” Basically, it’s the idea that most foreign policy threats faced by nation-states are the unintended consequences of their own past foreign interventions and exercises of power. The October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel is a…

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands” –Anthony Bourdain On November 29th, 2023, Henry Kissinger died at the age of 100. The internet rejoices. For years, Kissinger had been a living embodiment of evil that would just not die, in the realm of…

We Must Oppose Nationalism in All Forms. In today’s cynical and dishonest political climate every critique of Zionism is smeared as antisemitic by the right wing and moderate liberal media. For instance, no matter how many times US representative Ilhan Omar apologizes or clarifies the intentions of her statements against Israeli war crimes, she is time…