Did Adam Smith—celebrated hero of free trade—make a big exception for reasons of national defense? Would he support the Jones ...

Caleb Petitt is a Research Associate for the Independent Institute, where he researches historical political economy, history of economic thought, and trade. He holds a PhD in economics from George ...

In this excerpt from Letter IX of John Rankin’s Letters on American Slavery, Rankin argues that slavery is incompatible with ...

While Karl Marx hated Pierre- Joseph Proudhon and his philosophy of mutualism, a libertarian can find in it much to appreciate.

Libertarianism, and the classical liberalism from which it sprang, supports a strictly limited state, if indeed its adherents recognize the legitimacy of the state at all. The minimal state is a ...

Long discusses the treatment of punishment and criminal justice in Aeschylus’s Eumenides. As the play begins, Orestes is being pursued by the Furies, spirits of divine retribution, as vengeance for ...

Crypto- anarchism is a philosophy whose advocates think technology can assist them in creating communities based on consent rather than coercion.

In this episode we cover Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famed statesman, lawyer, orator, and above all a lover of liberty.

Ulysses S. Grant rode his popularity to political power. “Everything Wrong with the Presidents” series focuses on, as the title suggests, everything each president did wrong while in office. While ...

A libertarian world won’t eliminate all poverty, but it offers powerful tools for greatly reducing it, and improving the lives of the poorest and least privileged.

Smith discusses the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and why it so alarmed the defenders of natural rights.