…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…

De Emile Phaneuf. Artículo original: How Cost-Benefit Considerations Produced “Progressive” Governance in Pirate Societies, de 2 de julio de 2021. Traducido al español por Diego Avila. El libro de Peter Leeson, El Garfio Invisible: la economía oculta de los piratas explora otro fascinante relato sobre cómo es posible la gobernanza1 en la anarquía. Leeson distingue…

Peter Leeson’s book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates explores yet another fascinating account of how governance is possible under anarchy. Leeson distinguishes between the invisible hand (the “hidden order” present in metaphorical market anarchy) and the invisible hook (the “hidden order” in the literal anarchy of pirate societies). The main argument being…

A common liberal or “progressive” criticism of so-called “sharing economy” entities like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb (usually appearing in venues like Salon or Alternet) is that they’re “unregulated.”   This implicitly assumes, of course, that regulations like the taxi medallion system exist for some idealistic purpose of serving the “public welfare” and not simply guaranteeing…

In a July 10 article at Reason, David Harsanyi (“Bernie Sanders is the Future of the Democratic Party“) describes the rise of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as “a completely predictable outcome of the Democratic Party’s trajectory,” and a portent of the party’s “socialistic future.” I’m more worried about what Harsanyi portends for the future…

It is difficult to take a political work seriously with the word “nanny” in the title, but Dean Baker’s 2006 book the “Conservative Nanny State” is a serious book and a decent introduction to some often overlooked market distortions that benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else. It also has the advantage of…

Patrick Cockburn discusses the recent Islamic fundamentalist takeovers of parts of Iraq Justin Raimondo discusses the possibility of a third Iraq War. Nick Sibilia discusses how cops in Texas steal millions. Robert Fisk discusses how the Iraq crisis was created by Bush and Blair plus bankrolled by Saudi Arabia. Uri Avnery discusses how Israel is…

A recent article by Deborah Small at Salon raises some genuinely valuable points about the likely pitfalls of prison reform and the broad scope of the problem of criminalization. Yet the headline, and the later paragraphs, package these important and interesting points into yet another one of the “progressives should fear and despise libertarians” pieces…