Guest post by Kevin Carson. A considerable number of libertarian commentators have remarked on the sheer scale of subsidies and protections to big business, on their structural importance to the existing form of corporate capitalism, and on the close inter-meshing of corporate and state interests in the present state capitalist economy. We pay less attention,…
Category: Editor’s Picks
Button Pushing or Abdication: Which?
Guest post by Carl Watner. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1985. For an earlier article on this topic, with a different perspective, at Everything-Voluntary.com, see this post. In Detroit on April 29,1946, Leonard Read gave a speech to the Midwestern Conference of the Controllers Institute of America. The address, which was titled “I’d Push…
Unlimited Voluntary Exchanges
Guest post by R. C. Hoiles. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1985. In a talk before the Exchange Club of Santa Ana on voluntaryism, I used the subject voluntaryism rather than libertarianism because I do not believe there is as much confusion about voluntaryism as there is about libertarianism. Libertarianism has become distorted to…
Business Keeps Business Honest
Guest post by William Vandersteel. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February 1985. We take it for granted that the ordinary business contract — perhaps the most vital element of modern commerce — would be completely ineffectual without the vigilance of our courts and legal system. But as George Gershwin once wrote, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”…
The Problem of Representative Democracy
Guest post by Chris Bassil. This week will mark the first presidential debate between the incumbent Barack Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney. Although the two are certain to discuss a number of hot-button issues, major media outlets have begun to suggest that the debate will serve mostly as an evaluation of the candidates themselves.…
A Shift in the American Mind
Guest post by Geoffrey Pike. I have detected a shift in the American mind and it is a good thing. I see more and more people awakening to the fact that government is not there to look after people. I see more people realizing that these ongoing wars are ridiculous, unnecessary, and quite harmful. I…
Free-Market Healthcare Solutions Are Already in Place
Guest post by Riley Risto. How many health care professionals would trade a small portion of their incomes or leisure time for the satisfaction of joyfully practicing their craft without worrying about malpractice lawsuits or insurance collection? Apparently enough of them to staff at least 1,200 clinics throughout the USA. The DVC has a part-time,…
10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child
Guest post by Drs. Sears. 1. Hitting Models Hitting There is a classic story about the mother who believed in spanking as a necessary part of discipline until one day she observed her three- year-old daughter hitting her one-year-old son. When confronted, her daughter said, “I’m just playing mommy.” This mother never spanked another child.Children…
How Technology Moves Society, Not Politics
Guest post by Lasse Birk.
The Universal Product Code
Guest post by Stephen Gross. Have you ever wondered who regulates the Universal Product Code (UPC) and barcode industry? Probably not. Because of its complexity, there must be a central authority that administers these product identification numbers and the zebra-looking line segments on almost every product sold around the world. Even products imported from tiny…