Written by Jeffrey Tucker for Laissez Faire Today. People talk like capitalism is some strange foreign invader, a mechanical system that was imposed on the world a couple hundred years ago, fueled by burning coal and emitting smoke, and certainly not anything organic to the social order. This is preposterous. The Christmas story that surrounds…
Author: Editor's Pick
Selected content picked by the editor of Everything-Voluntary.com.
John Hasnas
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. Originally published in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians. How did I become a libertarian? It happened in the fifth grade at Public School #6 in Woodmere, New York…
Politics Makes Us Worse
Written by Aaron Ross Powell & Trevor Burrus for The Libertarian Library. Even if we try to ignore it, politics influences much of our world. For those who do pay attention, politics invariably leads in newspapers and on TV news and gets discussed, or shouted about, everywhere people gather. Politics can weigh heavily in forging…
Will the Police Protect You?
Written by Wendy McElroy for Laissez Faire Today. For years, I have declared a preference for taking my chances with criminals rather than with the police. Criminals usually want my property, not to control my life or to cage me like an animal. With criminals, I can pull a gun in self-defense. Until lately, however,…
A Short History of Liberty
Written by Dean Russell for The Freeman in 1955. From biblical times onward, the history of liberty and progress among various peoples seems to have followed a remarkably similar pattern. There are exceptions, of course—and the time element varies widely—but the pattern may be generally described by ten key ideas in sequence:1. Bondage. At some…
Religion and Politics: The Case for Their Divorce
Written by Gerard Casey for LewRockwell.com. Since the heyday of the Enlightenment, there have been concerted efforts in many parts of the West to get religion out of politics, presumably on the grounds that religion is bad for politics. Whatever the merits of these efforts, and to whatever extent they may be justifiable, what has…
But Wouldn’t Robots Take Over?
Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader. Economists agree that the accumulation of labor-saving capital is responsible for the great growth of wealth experienced in recent centuries. It has allowed the productivity of the public to soar, which has in turn improved wages and working conditions. Yet parallel to the phenomenal betterment of the life…
State Secession? No, Individual Secession.
Written by Alex Perales for Alex and Liberty. In wake of all the commotion about having individual states secede from the union to stop the great evils of the Federal Government, I think many are completely missing the point and the history that goes along with it. I disagree with those that call sympathizers of…
Freedom Works Both Ways
Written by Dean Russell for The Voluntaryist, June 1989. Everybody says he’s in favor of freedom. Even the Soviet leaders claim to be fighting for freedom. So did Hitler. Our own leaders are also for freedom. So was my slave-owning grandfather. But my grandfather failed to understand the fact that freedom is a mutual relationship;…
Islam and Markets
Written by Imad A. Ahmad for Minaret.org. The relationship between Islam and trade is not well appreciated in the West. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his wife Khadija were both merchants. The Qur’an, the Muslim scripture, is filled with parables using the language of trade. It was merchants, not soldiers, who were…