Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
14 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
[Update: I’m on vacation next Friday, so the next installment of this book club will be in two weeks.]SummaryIn this chapter on “Personal Liberty,” Rothbard puts run-of-the-mill “civil libertarians” to shame. He’s more radical than most of the left on traditional civil liberties like freedom of speech, drugs, and wiretapping. He stands up for the…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 6
13 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
…on March 12 we’ll be launching Liberalism.org, a new project from IHS [Institute for Humane Studies]. We’re aiming to build something akin to a modern-day coffee house of the liberal tradition—a digital gathering place where today’s most innovative liberal thinkers can weigh tradeoffs, think across differences, and apply liberal values to the challenges of today and…
Liberalism.org
24 Feb 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, laws of war, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: World War II
Pacifism presents itself as the highest moral ground: a principled refusal to engage in violence, an insistence that all killing is always wrong, and a hope that moral purity can disarm brutality. In practice, however, pacifism is not merely naïve but morally evasive. It refuses responsibility for consequences, confuses intentions with outcomes, and ultimately relies […]
The Moral Failure of Pacifism
21 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
SummaryRothbard now applies the normative standards developed in chapter 2 to explain what libertarians have against government (or as Rothbard, inspired by Germanic capitalization, calls it, “the State”). The argument is simple: If a private individual did what governments do, almost everyone would call him a criminal. If I took your money without your consent, I’d…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 3
14 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
SummaryIn this chapter (“Property and Exchange”), Rothbard introduces the “non-aggression axiom,” also often known as the “non-initiation of force axiom.” The intuition is simple enough: No one has the right to start using physical violence or the threat thereof against another person or his property. This is one of the first moral rules we learn as…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 2
07 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
Here’s my plan: I’ll lead off each discussion of Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty with (a) a brief summary of the chapter of the week, and (b) some critical comments. But this is your book club, so in the comments feel free to not only to discuss my summary and critique, but any thoughts…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 1
29 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: age of empires, economics of colonialism
11 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics
The paternalistic assumption is an important strand within socialist critiques of markets, though it is not the whole story, and it varies significantly across socialist traditions. A clear way to frame it is this: some socialist opposition to markets rests on a guardianship model of society, in which experts, planners, or the state are assumed to make better […]
Socialist paternalism vs free market choices
09 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, labour economics, labour supply, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: child poverty, family poverty
Last month, Econoboi hosted a debate on poverty between myself and Matt Bruenig. Here are my reflections on that debate.I was pleasantly surprised by Bruenig’s openness to most of my proposed supply-side reforms. He wasn’t just pro-immigration, but also pro-deregulation of housing and pro-nuclear. He was happy to admit that these policies aren’t just good…
Reflections on the Caplan-Bruenig Poverty Debate
27 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, budget deficits, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Public Choice, rentseeking, unemployment Tags: Argentina
As explained in my four-part series (here, here, here, and here) and in this clip from a recent interview, Javier Milei’s first two years have been amazingly successful. There are two points in the interview that deserve emphasis. First, Javier Milei’s libertarian policies already have been extremely beneficial for the Argentine economy. Inflation has dramatically […]
Celebrating Two Years of Libertarian Success in Argentina
25 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, labour economics, labour supply, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, unemployment Tags: Argentina
I’m still riding high after Javier Milei’s political party won a landslide in last month’s mid-term elections in Argentina. And I’m very much hoping and expecting that gives him enough legislative support to enact big reforms next year to further liberate the Argentinian economy (tax reform, free trade, and labor market liberalization). But let’s take […]
The Milei Miracle, Part III
07 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, David Friedman, economics of bureaucracy, economics of information, economics of regulation, history of economic thought, income redistribution, law and economics, libertarianism, market efficiency, Milton Friedman, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, development economics, economic growth, fiscal policy, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics Tags: Argentina
In yesterday’s column, I celebrated the huge victory for Javier Milei and his libertarian LLA party in Argentina’s mid-term elections. Today, let’s contemplate the consequences. Starting with this video. The above video is from an interview yesterday with the great Ross Kaminsky of KOA in Denver. He wanted to know the big-picture meaning of Sunday’s […]
Implications of the (Second) Libertarian Landslide in Argentina
29 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism Tags: Argentina
Passed along to me by the excellent Gonzalo Schwarz, I will not double indent: “Against all odds, Javier Milei achieved a major national victory, surpassing the expectations of polls that had predicted a technical tie, and doing so in a context where markets were deeply pessimistic and heavily dollarized. Despite having most of the media […]
Agustín Etchebarne on Milei and the election
28 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles, liberalism, libertarianism Tags: Argentina
The good part about being a libertarian or classical liberal is that you are always morally and economically correct. The bad part is that very few elections ever produce unambiguously happy outcomes. Here’s my list: 1980 presidential election in the United States. 1994 and 2010 congressional elections in the United States.* 2016 vote for Brexit […]
Another Libertarian Landslide in Argentina
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
A History of the Alt-Right
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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The truth about the great wind power fraud - we're not here to debate the wind industry, we're here to destroy it.
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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