Finally, here is an edition of Road to Serfdom that does justice to its monumental status in the history of liberty. It contains a foreword by the editor of the Hayek Collected Works, Bruce Caldwell. Caldwell has added helpful explanatory notes and citation corrections, among other improvements. For this reason, the publisher decided to call this “the definitive edition.” It truly is.
Memo to Conservatives: Quit Apologizing for Capitalism
Everywhere we turn these days, it seems, leftists are undermining and attacking capitalism on moral grounds. Their criticisms are directed not at merely certain corrupt corporations or individuals who abuse the system, but at the system itself.
Sadly, few conservatives, even conservative Christians, are willing or prepared to defend capitalism’s virtues. Rather than tout it in terms of liberty, they sheepishly apologize for its allegedly inherent greed.
Thatcher’s Britain returns 20 years after she fell
Britain is moving further to the Right after 13 years of Labour, it is disclosed today, as the public’s views on welfare become tougher than when Baroness Thatcher was prime minister.
Upton flips a switch on CFL bulbs
Three years after he led the charge to require consumers to ditch their comfortable old incandescent lights in favor of those twisty CFL bulbs, Rep. Fred Upton now wants to be the man to help undo that law as the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
That about-face is not unique among lawmakers looking to atone for stances they’ve taken over the past decade as they seek to gain top posts in a decidedly more conservative Republican Congress, but his reversal underscores how intent the GOP is on proving it has broken with past practices.
Economics 101-Steve Forbes
“The truth is, there is a moral basis for free markets,” Heritage Foundation trustee Steve Forbes said earlier this month at a Heritage event in Dallas. Free enterprise, he explained, creates wealth through voluntary exchange. This wealth creation, in turn, allows for the great philanthropic enterprises that have improved our lives: higher education, medical research and more. “We have to find our voices and not be on defense” against those who attack free enterprise, he argued.
Flat Tax: An idea whose time has come
There is widespread consensus that the current tax system is a complicated failure that hinders the nation’s growth while allowing the politically well-connected to manipulate the system to get special breaks that are not available to average workers and businesses. This is stimulating a great deal of interest in shifting to a simple and fair flat tax. For instance, President George W. Bush has appointed the President’s Advisory Panel on Tax Reform to recommend options for fundamental tax reform,[1] the Department of the Treasury has produced extensive analysis of the flat tax and other reform options,[2] and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are exploring various ways to reform the tax code.
The Castle Coalition-Citizens Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse
The Castle Coalition is the Institute for Justice’s nationwide grassroots property rights activism project. Founded in 2002, the Castle Coalition teaches home and small business owners how to protect themselves and stand up to the greedy governments and developers who seek to use eminent domain to take private property for their own gain. And thanks to the gracious generosity of our donors, we’re able to do this for free.
With our Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide, we provide activists around the country with the tools and strategies necessary to successfully stop the abuse of eminent domain in their towns. We travel the nation to meet with and educate concerned citizens about government-backed land grabs and also host training sessions for affected neighborhoods that are threatened by eminent domain abuse. Through our membership network, we give support to those communities most endangered by the alliance of tax-hungry governments and land-hungry developers.
Cliches of Socialism
When a devotee of private property, free market, limited government principles states his position, he is inevitably confronted with a barrage of socialistic cliches. Failure to answer these has effectively silenced many a spokesman for freedom. Here are suggested answers to some of the most persistent of the “Cliches of Socialism.” These are not the only answers or even the best possible answers; but they may help someone else develop better explanations of the ideas on liberty that are the only effective displacement for the empty promises of socialism. Single-sheet reprints of each answer available at cost. Unless otherwise indicated, books noted in this volume are published by and available from the Foundation for Economic Education
Why Unhappy People Become Liberals
According to polls — Pew Research Center, the National Science Foundation — and studies such as Arthur Brooks’s Gross National Happiness, conservative Americans are happier than liberal Americans.
Liberals respond this way: “If we’re unhappier, it’s because we are more upset than conservatives over the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves.”