Prices Have Work To Do, Even in Pandemics
“Prices,” said the economist Benjamin Anderson, “have work to do. Prices should be free to tell the truth.” With Covid cases rising, places like Los Angeles reinstating outdoor mask mandates, and social media bursting with even more indignation than usual about Those People who refuse to wear a mask (or Those People who refuse to leave the house without a mask), it’s time to take a couple of deep breaths and explore the work prices ...
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“Anything That's Peaceful": Leonard Read's Beautiful Philosophy of Freedom
The year 1964 seems so very long ago to those of us old enough to remember it. To those born in the fifty-plus years since, it must seem like another world.
In his first State of the Union speech, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced a “War on Poverty.” The first Beatles album from Capitol Records made its debut in the U.S. and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” catapulted to the number one single spot almost immediately. Hello Dolly! ...
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Hamilton, The Musical, Will Be Getting At Least $30 Million in Federal Aid. Hamilton, The Man, Is Partly to Blame. | Patrick Carroll
The past year and a half has been a trying time for the theater industry. Though auditoriums around the country used to host music, dancing, and laughter, they have now grown accustomed to silence, and perhaps even a bit of dust. Productions that were not killed outright have been on life support, clinging to desperate hopes that the pandemic will be over sooner rather than later.
One of the most famous shows caught up in this mess is the ...
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Castro's Cuba: Unfree, Unequal, and Underperforming - HumanProgress
As a boy, I was lucky enough to witness the end of communism in Eastern Europe. Together with my parents, I joined in the pro-democracy protests that swept through my native Czechoslovakia in 1989, jingling my keys to symbolize the opening of the Iron Curtain. During the day, we marched. At night, my friend and I painted anti-communist placards. It was “year zero,” a new beginning. By and large, things worked out well. Communism fell, and ...
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Why “Good” People Enable Totalitarians
In the searing Soviet-era novel Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman reveals the mindset that supports totalitarianism, sparing neither fascism nor communism.
As a journalist, Grossman was there in the aftermath of the genocide of Jews in Ukraine by Nazis and their civilian collaborators. Grossman describes how the Nazis (abetted by the crimes of Stalin) had first to stir feelings of hatred towards Jews before citizens would follow ...
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Cuba Demoted to “Not Real Socialism”
If Cuba is a workers’ paradise, why are so many people trying so hard to leave?
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Sweden: Lessons for America? - Trailer
It’s been suggested that Americans would be better off if the United States was more like Sweden. Do Swedes know something we don’t? Join Swedish native and scholar Johan Norberg as he explores his homeland’s economic and social landscape in Sweden: Lessons for America? The lessons to be learned from Sweden may not be the ones you expect.Check out our Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/FreeToChooseNetworkConnect with us on Twitter ...
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Commerce Points the Way to a More Peaceful World
I choked up with emotion as I scanned the Southwest departure screen at Florida’s Ft. Lauderdale airport. I was looking for the status of my flight home; to my surprise, among the many domestic flights leaving Florida that day were flights to Havana and Varadero, Cuba.
Why the emotional response? I am not Cuban; I am not of Latin American ancestry. Yet I experienced something universal, something more powerful than mere pride from identity ...
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John B. Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia Experiment and Reflections on the Welfare State | Lawrence W. Reed
Signs in national and state parks all over America warn visitors, “Please Don’t Feed the Animals.” Some of those government-owned parks provide further explanation, such as “The animals may bite” or “It makes them dependent.”
The National Park Service’s website for Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan advises,
It transforms wild and healthy animals into habitual beggars. Studies have shown that panhandling animals have a shorter ...
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The Economic Cost of Cuban Socialism
Cuba has a very sad history. It traded a regular dictatorship for a communist dictatorship six decades ago, and the results have been predictably awful.
Oppression, persecution, rationing, spying, deprivation, and suffering are facts of life.
For a while, it was subsidized by the Soviet Union, but that communist system eventually collapsed. More recently, it’s been subsidized by Venezuela, but now that socialist system also is ...
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Four Ways Socialism is Anti-Social - El American
Here’s a question for a PhD dissertation: How did something so radically anti-social ever get the name, social-ism?I leave that vexing matter to whoever wants to write it up. Meantime, I can assist the project by offering some of the reasons why socialism is a self-evidently anti-social contrivance. (This might require multiple columns).First, what is socialism? For a definition, socialists themselves offer numerous moving targets. For ...
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It’s About Time We Stopped “Trying Communism”
I don’t know how many protests, solidarity movements, refugees, human rights alerts, economic collapses, and purges are going to get this message through everyone’s heads, Communism is a terrible system of governance. In fact, at this point, we should be consistent. Any government that does not guarantee as to the very justification for its existence, individual rights, open markets, and accountable governance, is worth challenging.
I am ...
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Socialism Always Leads to Violence
Socialist violence rears its ugly head again in #Cuba. Some Americans must find it odd to see Cubans protesting. Aren’t they thrilled with their “excellent free health care and education?"The Cuban people, like all people, deserve liberty.----So you don’t miss the weekly video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://johnstossel.activehosted.com/f/1 ----Unfortunately Socialism is now cool in some circles. Congresswoman Alexandria ...
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July 2, 1962: The Day Retail Changed Forever
What are some of the most important dates in American history? July 4, 1776, seems obvious enough. Legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday has shined the spotlight on June 19, 1865. Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929), the bombing of Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and D-Day (June 6, 1944) are important twentieth-century dates. On July 2, 1962, however, an inauspicious store opening signaled a substantial shift in the American economic ...
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The High Price of Popcorn
Summertime is the season of the blockbuster movie. And what could go better with a fast-paced action flick than a giant tub of buttered popcorn?
People everywhere are starting to return to pre-lockdown lives, which includes heading out to the local Cineplex to see a movie … any movie!
But when they arrive, they indubitably will complain about the high price of popcorn. “Movie popcorn is too expensive!” my students shout. Not ...
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Where Have All the Economists Gone? (Socialism) | John C. Goodman
If a history professor asserted that black holes dont exist, would anyone pay any attention to him? What about an English professor who advocates Lamarckian evolutionary theory over Darwin? How about a sociologist who believes in alchemy?
What if these folks didnt just have weird beliefs, what if they taught these ideas in their classes? What if they wrote articles and books and gave public speeches extoling them?
The answer is obvious. ...
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Socialism Has Poisoned Every Aspect of Cuban Life | Guest: Martha Bueno | Ep 130
Free the PeopleOfficial YouTube channel for Free the People | https://freethepeople.org
Free the People’s mission is simple—to make the values of liberty entertaining, accessible, and human. Free the People deliberately explores issues that bridge the partisan divide—topics like criminal justice reform, health care choice, and opposing corporate cronyism. We produce documentary films, video web series, and podcasts that illuminate the ...
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Crimes Against Prosperity
The advent of the modern state has subjected humanity to a great many social experiments, some with glorious results, most absolutely horrific. We have seen all too often genocide, artificial famines, war, repression, and the disruption of social fabrics through poorly thought out social programs. The state has also been successful at facilitating and maintaining relatively prosperous societies.
We know today beyond a shadow of a doubt that ...
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Exclusive: Cuban Activist Explains What’s Really Motivating the Cuban People’s Uprising
Many mainstream media outlets, government officials, and social media companies like Twitter framed the protests as demonstrations regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of vaccine availability.
But a prominent Cuban activist says the uprising is about something else entirely.
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Julian Simon was right: More humans equals more abundance
In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb,” a best-selling panic manifesto that predicted mass starvation and global catastrophe due to overpopulation. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” Ehrlich proclaimed. Continue Reading...
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FAVORITES
Is life today bad? Or is it awesome? “Economics Made the World Great” shows changes that have taken place in the past three centuries that have made the world better. Can it be better still?
Jon Favreau’s heartwarming 2014 independent film, “Chef”, is a case study in entrepreneurial value creation. Even better, it shows us how we can achieve economic success and personal fulfillment simultaneously, provided that we figure out how to take our passions and turn them towards making other people’s lives better.
Magatte Wade was born in Senegal but spent much of her childhood in France. Growing up, she saw the extreme differences in wealth between Africa and Europe. This disparity sparked a question… Why are some countries rich, and others poor?
How do we summarize the 2010s? Many think it was an awful decade, ten years of horror, unfair distribution and environmental disaster.
It’s a Wonderful Loaf is an ode to the hidden harmony that is all around us–the seeming magical ways that we anticipate and meet the needs of each other without anyone being in charge.