Category: free market

Is Capitalism Devouring Itself?

Commentary When lockdowns happened in 2020, and then went on and on, and small business was smashed and the bourgeois lifestyle criminalized, and churches shut and normally attacked, and the bureaucracies took over and ruled in the name of science that proved wrong time and time again, and a whole generation of students and workers…


Too Much Choice

Commentary Back in 2015, in a highly publicized comment, Bernie Sanders said there was too much choice in underarm deoderant and sneakers. His complaint is not totally without support from professional psychologists. According to well received research in this field, too much choice can actually be debilitating. These scholars study this matter and conclude that…


Biden Administration Extends Attack on the Free Market in New Rules on Student Debt

Commentary Instead of addressing the college debt crisis, the Biden administration has proposed new rules designed to punish for-profit colleges and stick taxpayers with billions of dollars in debt forgiveness. Taxpayers deserve accountability from the Department of Education, not carrots and sticks that interfere with a free marketplace for higher education. The rules, proposed last month, do…


Conflicting News Reports and the Miracle of Markets

Commentary The following news reports have all been published in the current month: “Fertilizer stocks are coming back to earth, dragged down by falling crop prices.” “Higher food and energy prices are expected to dominate a divisive G20 meeting later this week.” “Rampant food inflation is roiling the world’s least-developed nations. It is also hitting…


An American Majority, Not a Republican Majority: Part 2—Lessons From President Reagan

Commentary To really understand the American majority that we can build, we must understand the one that emerged to support President Ronald Reagan. Further, it is essential to understand how much Reagan had learned from President Richard Nixon and the emerging, massive, anti-left majority that first appeared in 1972. Understanding the Rise of Nixon In…


American Majority, Not a Republican Majority: Part 1

Commentary This is the first of four columns outlining the potential for a dramatic shift in the American political and governmental system. These columns are dedicated to turning a temporary opportunity into a permanent change that can create a stable reform government for several generations. The combination of Big Government Socialism, woke radicalism, a governing…


Markets and Private Property, Not Government, Protect the Environment

Commentary  Each century presents its unique set of problems for lovers of freedom, peace, and prosperity. While the great vanguards of liberty in the 20th century dealt with the looming shadow of centralization and were engaged in a battle against socialists and statists who argued for centralization and adjudication of individual liberty for the sake of universal…


Free Market Capitalism Is Under Siege—From Capitalists

Commentary We live in a strange world. John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, helped provide the energy that powered the American century beginning in the early 1900s. Today, his grandchildren spend the billions of dollars that he donated to the Rockefeller Foundation to attack the same oil and gas industry that he almost…


Doctors? Pharmacists?

Commentary Should doctors be allowed, by law, to fulfill medical prescriptions for their patients? Until recently, Montana forbade any such activity (unless their offices were located more than 10 miles away from the nearest pharmacy). The pharmacists of the Big Sky state were for many years happy with this enactment. The last thing they presumably…


We Need a Little More Milton Friedman Right About Now

Commentary Not long ago, President Joe Biden made an offhanded comment that “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.” This president has seldom spoken more valid words. And that’s where the trouble has begun. If you were to rate the three most influential economic minds of all time, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with…