Constitutions: No Authority

Guest post by Butler Shaffer. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, June 1987. I recently returned from a conference at which a participant took frenzied issue with me over the question of whether the Constitution is capable of protecting human liberty. I took the position that no Constitution can guarantee our freedoms, because it is impossible…

The Inflation of Rights

Guest post by Sir Alfred Sherman. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, April 1987. In this essay I wish to argue that the inflation of rights, in the sense of hypertrophy of claims on society that the state is responsible for levying, is inherently self-defeating. It is bound to generate conflicts of rights that will end…

Ten Pillars of Economic Wisdom

Guest post by Carl Watner, Kevin Cullinane, and Patricia Cullinane. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February, 1987. 1. The art of understanding economics (whole systems of human energy transfer) consists in looking not merely at the immediate, but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing out the consequences of…