Theft is despicable. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily worse than assault or murder, but while those actions may be the result of elevated passions in the heat of the moment, theft rarely is. Theft is a cold, calculated act designed to deprive an individual of their owned property. Perhaps the only thing more contemptible…
Tag: profits
Crime and Punishment in a Free Society
Would a free society be a crime-free society? We have good reason to anticipate it. Don’t accuse me of utopianism. I don’t foresee a future of new human beings who consistently respect the rights of others. Rather, I’m drawing attention to the distinction between crime and tort — between offenses against the state (or society) and offenses against individual persons or their justly held property.
Everything is a Remix
I wrote in a Facebook discussion that all creative works were derivative. I think that’s true. Consider “orcs”. I understand that orcs were invented by Tolkein in LOTR. In The Hobbit, they were simply “goblins,” but were sized slightly larger than humans. Other writers used “goblins” as a creature much smaller than humans, so when…
On Health “Insurance”
If your insurance covers a pre-existing or expected condition, it’s not insurance. Insurance is pooling your money with others in order to mitigate risk. There is no risk in catching a pre-existing or expected condition because those are certain. If you get pregnant on accident or something unexpected happens to your planned pregnancy, that’s risk.…
The Coin of the Realm
Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. Archived columns can be found here. FFT-only RSS feed available here. (Editor’s…
Hemp, Farmers, and Regulation
Send him mail. “Finding the Challenges” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Verbal Vol. Verbal is a software engineer, college professor, corporate information officer, life long student, farmer, libertarian, literarian, student of computer science and self-ordering phenomena. Archived columns can be found here. FTC-only RSS feed available here. This…
What I Can’t, and Can, Control
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. Seeing these Congressional hearings or Presidential speeches can make someone batty. Fortunately, I avoid them. What good would they…
Workers, Workers, Everywhere, But Not A Place to Work
Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. Archived columns can be found here. FFT-only RSS feed available here.…
Entrepreneurship and Social Cooperation
We may laud the market order as an indispensable arena for large-scale social cooperation, but let’s not forget that people cannot cooperate with one another if they don’t know that the potential for mutually beneficial exchanges exists.
In Praise of Profit
In the last two weeks, I presented a defense of key libertarian concepts — the market, private property, and competition — in a way intended to make them palatable to people who believe in individual liberty yet have something like an aesthetic aversion to the market economy. Today let’s examine profit, another concept that has an unpleasant taste for some people who might otherwise be attracted to libertarianism.