Complex systems, by definition, are systems that are too complex for any single individual (or group of individuals) to grasp and understand. What difference does that make? It makes a huge difference. Most of us wouldn’t walk into a chemistry lab and start pouring solutions from one beaker into another—at least if we don’t...
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Libertarian anarchists are the Rodney Dangerfields of the ideological universe. Born and reared in a world pervaded by the state and statism, we must fight our way through a dense jungle of clinging, collectivist vines, obscured by murky, mendacious propaganda, and populated by brainwashed lizards, political opportunists, and a multitude of wormy moochers. If...
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Join the Independent Institute this summer for its college seminars in Colorado Springs and Berkeley. These five-day programs feature lectures, readings, multimedia presentations, and group discussions on the fundamentals of free societies. Students will learn about ethics and liberty, Austrian economics, public choice, money and banking, the follies of socialism and interventionism, myths of...
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There are now many more libertarians in the world than there were fifty years ago. Libertarian writing has increased greatly, and the readership of libertarian literature has increased substantially, especially since the development and widespread adoption of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Yet, it seems to me, we no longer have libertarians...
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I suspect that most readers of The Beacon tend to favor personal freedoms to a sufficient degree that they will immediately agree with the title of this post. If we want to live in a free country, freedom has to mean that we are free to make choices that others, including others in positions...
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In January I left Suffolk University to start the new Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. I remain affiliated as a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute and plan to continue my productive relationship with them well into the future. Since I’ve continued to write commentary for Independent some of you might have...
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In 1913, exactly a century ago, the United States was a flourishing, economically advanced country. Its real output per capita was the world’s highest. It produced a great abundance of agricultural products and was a leading exporter of cotton, wheat, and many other farm products. Yet it also had the world’s largest industrial sector,...
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The Spring 2013 issue of The Independent Review—the Independent Institute’s flagship scholarly journal, edited by Robert Higgs—is hot off the press. Below you’ll find links to articles and book reviews that address a host of intriguing questions: Why have domestic police agencies across the United States resorted increasingly to “no-knock” raids and other military-type...
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Arline Alchian Hoel reports that her father, Armen Alchian, “passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning at his home in Los Angeles.” He was 98 years old. Armen Alchian was a major figure in the economics profession for more than half a century. At UCLA, where he spent his academic career as...
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The world-renowned philosopher Alvin C. Plantinga has recently received the prestigious Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy, awarded by the University of Pittsburgh’s Departments of Philosophy, History, and Philosophy of Science, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science. Plantinga is widely known for his work in the philosophy of...
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