The Independent Institute reported on Friday, July 5th, that free market economist and Institute Research Fellow Robert L. Formaini, had passed away the day before, on July 4th, at the age of 78. Born on September 15, 1945, in Ithaca, New York, Bob received both his PhD (1989) and M.A. (1984) in political economy…
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William F. Buckley once defined a conservative as “Someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop.” With apologies to Buckley, we might define an economist as someone who stands athwart the contemporary public policy conversation, yelling, “This time isn’t different!”

In recent decades, the vicissitudes of U.K. politics have projected onto the world a narrow image of Scotland as a hotbed of socialism and nationalism, a realm where victimhood and provincialism reign supreme. Reading the headlines, it is easy to disregard unless one is somewhat familiar with the country’s history and intellectual tradition, and…
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Jack Rakove’s WSJ podcast (“James Madison’s Critique of the Senate Still Holds,” Sept. 16, 2022) is right on the history of the so-called Great Compromise, but wrong in arguing that representation by the states qua states in Congress’s upper chamber is a constitutional flaw. It can be shown, as James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock…
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This piece is the pro argument in our two-post debate on Roe v. Wade and Abortion. You can find the con argument, written by Graham H. Walker in response to this piece, here. The Supreme Court’s decision to hear an appeal from Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law raises questions and concerns regarding the longstanding desire…
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Walter E. Williams, outspoken Black libertarian economist, professor of economics at George Mason University (GMU) for 40 years, syndicated newspaper columnist, author of 13 books, and occasional guest host on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, died December 2, 2020, after teaching a class at GMU. He was 84. The world will be less informed and…
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The power of ideological convictions in shaping political, social, and economic life.

If Democracy in Chains represents the state of art in the research and critical thinking in Nancy MacLean’s field, History as an academic discipline is in serious intellectual trouble.

Leland Yeager, who was a valuable member of the scholarly community, passed away April 23 at the age of 93.

In another post, Randall Holcombe rightly notes the pressing need for tax reform. Holcombe argues that Trump’s proposed tax reform is “an improvement over the current system.” That may be true; time will tell. Yet, today my news feed reports nonchalantly that the Republican Congress passed a budget in excess of $4 trillion. That…
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