The fall 2012 issue of The Independent Review, our quarterly journal edited by Robert Higgs, is hot off the press! As always, The Independent Review deals with a wide variety of fascinating questions about economic policy, political and social theory, and intellectual history. To test your wits, try answering the questions addressed in the...
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Twenty years ago today, an FBI sniper shot Vicki Weaver in the head as she held her ten-month-old baby at her home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The sniper also shot her husband Randy Weaver in the back, trying to kill him. Their son was shot in the back and killed the day before by U.S....
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I shouldn’t have to care. He’s not my doctor. Neither his nor any other politician’s opinion on the matter should have any bearing on or meaning for my life or anyone else’s. I shouldn’t have to care what Mayor Bloomberg thinks about nursing vs. formula for babies. Nor for what Senator Harkin thinks birth...
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I was pleased to learn that today is the Eighth National Day of the Cowboy. As such, it’s especially appropriate that we take advantage of the opportunity to set the record straight on many things Cowboy and Western. First of all, the Old West was far more peaceful than is commonly portrayed in movies...
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We are delighted that our Research Fellow John C. Goodman, Research Editor Anthony Gregory, and Research Fellow Robert P. Murphy will be among the many speakers at the upcoming 2012 Freedom Fest in Las Vegas (July 11-14), and we invite you to visit with us at the Independent Institute’s booth at the conference. 10:55...
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My friend and colleague Robert Higgs has written on the increasing adoption by Americans of the Italian Fascists under Mussolini’s slogan, “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato:” “Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” And I have also previously posted on President...
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We are very pleased to announce the publication of our very timely, widely acclaimed, and compelling, new book on how to get beyond partisanship and special-interest politics to resolve one of biggest issues facing us today, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis by our Research Fellow John C. Goodman. Dr. Goodman is the renowned, free-market,...
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Water shortages and poor water quality are looming threats in many developing countries. By contrast, water supplies and water quality have increased in much of the United States due to a specific policy innovation: water markets and market-like exchanges. The growing participation of wildlife agencies and conservationists in water markets and exchanges is especially...
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Facts of the case: My wife and I live in an area with one neighbor nearby. One day, I knock on my neighbor’s door and demand that he give me $10,000. He wants to know what the devil I am talking about. I explain that the people—most of them, in any event—in our area...
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Argentine president Cristina Kirchner recently caused an international uproar with her decision to expropriate 51 percent of YPF, Argentina´s main oil and gas producer, and a major affiliate of Spain´s Repsol, one of the world´s great energy concerns. As has so often been the case with Latin American nationalizations, the move was accompanied by...
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