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

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

Monticello May 8. 25. Dear Sir Your favor of Apr. 29 has been duly recieved, and the offer of mineralogical specimens from [M]r Myer has been communicated to Dr Emmet our Professor of Natural history.

Crypto- anarchism is a philosophy whose advocates think technology can assist them in creating communities based on consent rather than coercion. Crypto- anarchists wish to be free from state ...

The socialist calculation debate revolves around the question of whether central planners can, at least in principle, make the economic calculations necessary to achieve the rational, efficient ...

The Sanskrit Arthashastra, a manual for establishing a prosperous state written in ancient India by Kautilya, articulates many principles that would later become the foundations of modern economics.

Born in England while Puritans were persecuted, Williams hopped aboard a ship to America in an attempt to find a place where freedom of religion was a guaranteed right. Unable to find a home free of ...

From “immigrants are going to take American jobs” to “they’re going to commit crimes” or “they won’t learn English,” we’ve heard it all. The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re ...

Today Cicero is often read only by classical scholars and reluctant students, which is a great shame because his life and philosophy reflect a sort of proto- liberalism that came to influence a wide ...

The classical liberals of the 18 th, 19 th, and much of the 20 th century positioned themselves as opponents of what they termed “privilege.” For these thinkers, privilege referred to the monopolies, ...

Retributive punishment refers to punishment for a crime that is carried out for retributive reasons and is justified if there really are good retributive reasons for punishing crime. To get a clear ...

The libertarian principle on which the legitimacy of labor unions depends is freedom of association. Any person has a natural right to associate with any other person or group for any purpose that ...