Sheldon Richman

1 day ago | libertarianinstitute.org | Sheldon Richman

In Mahmoud v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether parents of children in government schools have a constitutional right to opt out of programs that “expose” their kids to LGBTQ materials. Once again, the chickens have come home to roost. By that, I mean that if politicians, bureaucrats, and elected boards did not run schools and force (tax) parents and nonparents to finance them, this problem could not arise.

6 days ago | libertarianinstitute.org | Sheldon Richman

Even when a line on a map separates two individuals, trade is still trade—that is, mutually beneficial cooperation. Whether the line separates towns, cities, counties, states, or countries, it does not matter. The transactions are win-win. We could do quite well without the categories of exports and imports.

1 week ago | fee.org | Sheldon Richman

by Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman and In brief. The Commerce Department (whose idea was that?) said last week that 2006 was another record year for the U.S. trade deficit. The value of imports beat the value of exports by $764 billion. That makes five record years in a row. China's trade surplus with us hit $233 billion. Ordinarily, I would ignore this nonstory because, as Adam Smith wisely said, Nothing . . . can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade.

1 week ago | libertarianinstitute.org | Sheldon Richman

Many people are uneasy with the free market. I think that’s because they subscribe, implicitly if not explicitly, to the labor theory of value. Workers, people lament, seem not to reap the full and just reward for their labors. Belief in the labor theory puts adherents in good company. Adam Smith and his successor, David Ricardo, were labor theorists. Fédéric Bastiat held a variant of the labor theory.

2 weeks ago | libertarianinstitute.org | Sheldon Richman

There can be no doubt among competent historians that if … the Austrian School has occupied an almost unique position in the development of economic science, this is entirely due to the foundations laid by this one man…. [I]ts fundamental ideas belong fully and wholly to [?]…. [W]hat is common to the members of the Austrian School, what constitutes their peculiarity and provided the foundations for their later contributions is their acceptance of the teaching of [?]. —F. A.