One of the main functions the state serves in practice is to forcibly transfer wealth to politically connected interest groups. Prisons serve that function today, and they have served it historically. In The Enterprise of Law,  economist Bruce Benson documents the rise of state controlled law enforcement in England. Stateless customary tort law had previously prevailed,…

“I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American…

One of the first things I learned in my health care career is that pain is an inherently subjective experience. Different people experience different levels of pain in different situations, and everyone has their own idiosyncratic problem areas — one can’t bear dental pain while another finds back injuries unbearable. Because of this fact, backed…