Have you ever wondered why so many people have such bad political views? Why is it we all seem to have that extended family member who thinks they have the answer to every political question (despite dubious credentials)?
When I was standing on the side of the road a dozen different drivers came up to offer me their service. I’d like to start seeing that in medicine. Just imagine if you had a health problem, and a dozen different doctors came to you to offer you their services.
As long as people interact with others, rules which govern their behavior will be necessary. What often goes unnoticed, however, are the myriad non-state methods and institutions which create and alter the rules of our society.
What sets the “immigration policy” in a free market, is the private decisions of many different people who choose who to (and who not to) hire, purchase from, lease to, sell to, etc.
In underdeveloped nations, however, because society is much poorer, governments lack the resources to crack down on underground private schools. In his book The Beautiful Tree, James Tooley explored and researched numerous poor countries including India, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and China.
Immigration is controversial among libertarians for valid reasons. Many libertarians reduce their political opinions down to property rights and non-aggression. For immigration, however, it is difficult to see how appealing to property rights can address the question since it entails the movement of people over public property. Anti-State There is another common sentiment that is
Find yourself arguing in favor of liberty, economics and any other political issues popular in current discourse? Well, bad news. You’re doing it wrong. Let’s dig into these “Bad Arguments” and learn how to address common rhetoric and positions effectively. In this series, we will be deconstructing why each of the listed arguments is poor
A common libertarian understanding of the debate between minarchists and anarchists is to view it as a sliding scale. E.g. minarchism is far less State aggression and anarchism is none. There are lots of caveats, such as some minarchists think there can be a State without aggression, or that anarchism will actually have more aggression.
So you’ve got the basics of libertarianism down. Taxation is theft, the market does things better than the state, etc, etc. There’s still much more to be discovered, however, whether it be more sophisticated ethical arguments, or historical examples that bolster your intuitions. This list of books will expand your knowledge and understanding of the rich political
This post is inspired from a conversation I had with a colleague of mine and his brother. The conversation was largely about intellectual property rights and whether they were a benefit or hindrance to market innovation. The principled issue is that intellectual property rights are neither property nor a right. Sounds insane at first, doesn’t
