Punishing Dishonest Dope Dealers and Other So-Called-Serious Ideas
The lines between serious and ridiculous are so blurred we can’t even tell what’s real anymore.
Yang’s Basic Income Plan Comes With a Deadly Catch
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants to be America’s sugar daddy, but his Universal Basic Income proposal is too good to be true.
Background Checks Punish Minorities
Universal gun background checks would not have prevented a single mass public shooting in recent years. Instead, they stop law-abiding citizens from owning a gun, most often poor people and…
What Does It Mean To Be a Libertarian?
With all due respect to Adam Smith and Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises, why not make it simple? <em>Don't hurt people and don't take their stuff</em>—that's libertarianism in a…
Fashionable Fascists, or the Dangers of Populism
Fascism was a 20th century authoritarian movement that swept across Europe, encompassing Spain, Italy, and most famously, Germany. The fascists were intensely nationalist, combining ideas of national greatness with general…
Dropping Traffic Rules and Signs Would Make Us Safer
We need more intelligence and less attempted engineering of preferred outcomes.
Beethoven’s Soundtrack to the Birth of Modernity
For Beethoven, the symphony becomes a microcosmic social order in all its diversity, layers of activity, and surprises.
How Will Banking and Credit Work in a Cryptocurrency Economy?
What is the future of banking, central banking and financial intermediation in a world in which cryptocurrency is dominant? Let’s speculate a bit, with the proviso that no one can…
City Governments Are Selling off Land Lot by Lot
Last fall, the Arizona Republic ran a huge expose of a strange problem in the city. The city owns 1,400 lots of property, some 2.3 square miles in total, for…
The Dos and Don’ts of Talking Liberty
Nearly everyone knows there is something wrong with the world as it is. The liberty-minded person believes that he or she knows a major part of what is wrong. There…