The real threat to free markets lies in the regulatory state.

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.

My book, Advanced Introduction to the Austrian School of Economics, is being translated into Korean, and the translator asked me to provide a short preface for the Korean edition. I’m reproducing it below, partly just to give my book a bit more publicity (it’s affordably priced, if you go with the paperback), partly to...
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Is the U.S. Constitution the best possible charter a nation could ever conceive? Many people seem to think so, but some of the greatest patriots of the Founding Era would have disagreed—vehemently. Indeed, men like Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Richard Henry Lee (among others) thought the Constitution’s flaws would become the republic’s undoing....
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“We don’t want to ‘save the planet’ from human beings; we want to improve the planet for human beings.” —Alex Epstein I never thought I would encounter a book titled The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. After all, in this day and age, it is the politically correct and fashionable trend for activists, media,...
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The current issue of the Cato Policy Report (January/February 2015) contains a short article about a book by Zhang Weiying called The Logic of the Market: An Insider’s View of Chinese Economic Reform, which was originally published in Chinese (and said to be a best-seller in China in that form) and was recently translated into English....
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[Editor’s Note: The Independent Institute hosted a sold-out event, “Developing the Developed World: Entrepreneurship, Liberty, and the Future,” with Peter Thiel on Tuesday, January 27, 2015.] “Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search...
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“Historically, the common form of revolution has been a not-too-efficient despotism which is overthrown by another not-too-efficient despotism with little or no effect on the public good. Indeed, except for the change in the names of the ruling circles, it would be hard to distinguish one from the other.” —Gordon Tullock For the past...
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After this month’s elections, the number of states that have “right to try” laws for experimental drugs has hit five. One in ten states: Not bad for an effort run out of one think tank in Arizona. However, I have seen no evidence that any manufacturer of an experimental drug is taking advantage of these...
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“The twenty-first century will be a magnificent time to be alive. Dare be an optimist.” —Matt Ridley On November 12, 2014, the world watched with excitement as another historic human achievement unfolded: After a decade-long journey that covered 4 billion miles in space, the first human spacecraft landed on a comet. This remarkable event...
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