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Lessons in Freedom: Looking Back to Gain Perspective!

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

As one who tasted both a bit of Nazism and Communism, today's economic fiasco strikes me as relatively mild as human disasters go.  For starters many in America remember the Great Depression and the Second World War, both of which had devastated millions of lives, destroying the bulk and arresting even more. The concentration camps, the gulags, the bombings and the wreckage left in their wake across the globe simply aren't anything like what we are experiencing now, economically, mostly, but not exclusively. And the fallout from the loss of all the wealth is yet to be counted up.

Lessons in Freedom: Egalitarian Fallacies

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

"As the late Murray N. Rothbard pointed out, in his book, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (1977), that equality is simply everywhere and cannot be erased if for no other reason than the simple one that those doing the erasing of it would enjoy vastly greater—unequal—powers from what those do who are subjected to the erasure."

Very few duplicities are as blatant as those exhibited by academic champions of egalitarianism. This is because most of them are extremely well positioned in the academy, published by the most prestigious journals and book publishers, invited to the fanciest conferences, and otherwise singled out for privileges unknown to others, especially to those who do not advocate egalitarianism.

Lessons in Freedom: Truncated "Liberty"

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

"Genuine liberty means being in full control of one's life not being accorded the privilege of not always suffering the intrusions of one's oppressors."

Some people seem to believe that when they aren't being directly oppressed, meddled with, intruded upon, interfered with and so on, they are then free. Americans often have this conception of being free because their various governments often leave them be. Only 40 percent of their resources is being taxed! Their bars can be open until 1 AM or even later in some places. Blue laws apply only here and there, on certain days. So, hurray, we are free!

Lessons in Freedom: Beholden to our ancestors

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

"The best system for what some call inter-generational justice--for squaring with our ancestors fairly--is the private property system that does a reasonably decent job of securing for everyone what he or she has a right to, what everyone is entitled to."

When the idea of paying taxes, especially the exorbitant ones extorted from the well to do, is debated, defenders sometimes maintain that these are due because we owe it to our ancestors who forged institutions and other results that now benefit us all. So even our own selves, our bodies, health, pleasant looks, and, of course, any inheritance we were left by our elders do not really belong to us free and clear.

Lessons in Freedom: The Unearned Wealth Trap

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

The bottom line is that what one has a right to is one's life, one's liberty, and the property that arises from these whether come by some hard way or easy.

Sometimes defenders of human liberty put their case badly and one such instance is when they defend the right to private property by identifying all expropriation or extortion as the taking of earned wealth. But it isn't a matter of whether the wealth was earned or not--quite a lot of one's wealth, the benefits one enjoys in life, belong to one even if one hasn't earned these.

Lessons in Freedom: Government Regulations Revisited

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

...But the plain fact is that government is simply a bunch of other people, with no special qualifications to run our lives, to supervise us all...

You might not think it considering my relentless concerns about the growing power of government, but I am not a pessimist. There are many areas of life where liberty is making advances--e.g., gays are no longer being so persistently harassed by government and even the obscene "war" on drugs may eventually give way to much saner policies. But in the economic realm, where it causes so much direct damage to us all, government's interference is on the rise.

Lessons in Fredom: Regulation Mania

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

One is based on the phenomenon of market failures but omits from considerations that there is a far greater hazard from political failures when governments regulate the market.

Government regulation of the American economy--with the implication for all economies--is back in favor with politicians, bureaucrats and, most importantly, certain outspoken economists. (Nobel Laureate and Princeton University professor Paul Krugman, who is a regular columnist for The New York Times and a very frequent talk show guest is a good example, as is political scientist James Galbraith of the University of Texas at Austin.)

Lessons in Freedom: The Nonsense of "A new world order"

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

It is only in the last 400 years or so that the classical liberal idea of a relatively free economy has caught on here and there, and even then mainly in the rhetoric of various, sometimes admittedly prominent academic economists, not in the public philosophies of nations.

Business Week reports--July 6, 2009, page 8--that Roger Altman, Deputy Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, now CEO of an investment banking boutique (Evercore Partners), has, like President Sarkozy of France, concluded that it's the end for capitalism. As Business Week tells it, Boltman wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that "The era of laissez-faire economics is over, and statism, once discredited, is making a comeback--even in the U.S. Also out of vague is globalization."

Lesson's in Freedom: One's Right to be Wrong

by Tibor R. Machan (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)

In a recent demonstration outside the Earl Warren Bldg in San Francisco someone was waiving around a sign that read: "A moral wrong can't be a civil right." Well, in fact it can! A simple case in point is when someone writes something that is immoral or produces pictures or movies that are morally corrupt or writes a book that praises Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot (Khmer Rouge). In America one definitely has a legal or civil right to do all this even though it's all arguably morally wrong. And all human beings have this right, actually, whether their legal system acknowledges it or not.

Indeed, the entire point of having rights is to be in charge of a sphere of one's life, which means one is free to act well or badly within such a sphere--it is entirely up to the individual and others may not invade the sphere even if quite rightly they judge what one is doing morally wrong.

Lessons in Freedom: Power Really Does Corrupt As it Expands

by Tibor R. Machan

Lord Acton, the British historian is widely known for at least one of his observations. This is that "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Acton made this observation amidst a whole lot of insights and analyses that have gone down as the treasures of late classical liberal political thought. His most famous insight has by now become a cliche, a truth that we all know even if we fail to heed it in our daily lives and public affairs.