Entries by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

CLICHES OF PROGRESSIVISM #3 – Equality Serves the Common Good by Lawrence W. Reed

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The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is proud to partner with Young America’s Foundation (YAF) to produce “Clichés of Progressivism,” a series of insightful commentaries covering topics of free enterprise, income inequality, and limited government. Our society is inundated with half-truths and misconceptions about the economy in general and free enterprise in particular. The “Clichés of Progressivism” series […]

America’s Electronic Police State by Wendy McElroy

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Big Brother is not only watching, but gathering more power. The modern surveillance state is referred to as an electronic police state because it uses technology to monitor people in order to detect and punish dissent. The authorities exert social control through spying, harsh law enforcement, and by regulating “privileges” such as the ability to […]

Do Markets Promote Immoral Behavior? by Fred E. Foldvary

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Pure markets enhance good behavior, because in such arrangements, voluntary acts are rewarded and involuntary acts are punished. A pure market, as we define it, consists only of voluntary human action. That’s because a truly free market includes governance structures that penalize coercive harm, and such pure markets do not impose any restrictions or costs […]

The Great Inversion: Technology like Bitcoin flips the logic of collective action by Carl Oberg

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The political logic of “concentrated benefits and diffuse costs” has been with us since day one of democracy. But it was only recently explained effectively by great economists like the Nobel Prize-winning James Buchanan and Mancur Olson. It works like this: A special interest group such as the sugar lobby wants money in the form of subsidies, tax […]

Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything by George C. Leef

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Our Legal System Poses a Grave Threat to Our Liberty. In the gigantic theater that is American politics, one of the favorite roles for politicians to play is that of the tough guy who is determined to “crack down” on something or other. Such actions are predictably cheered by whatever voting groups the politician wants […]

4 Things You Should Know About Mass Incarceration by Daniel J. D’Amico

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It’s now common knowledge: The United States is the world’s leading nation when it comes to imprisonment. With an estimated 1,570,400 inmates by the end of 2012—and an incarceration rate of 716 prisoners per 100,000 citizens—the United States holds more human beings inside cages, on net and per capita, than any other country around the globe […]

Czech Book Dusting off Tucker (Benjamin, not Jeffrey) by Lawrence W. Reed

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The literature of liberty, free markets, and individualism is immensely rich and getting richer with each passing year. Today’s great minds are building on yesterday’s greats. Taken as a whole, liberty’s library constitutes a most incredible collection of inspiration and insight into the boundless potential of human society. The only sad thing about it all […]

The Big-Box Effect: How superstores create unsung benefits for Main Street by Max Borders

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Asheville, North Carolina, is beautiful. Mountains, like the topography in Tolkien, surround an architectural mix for a townscape of 80,000. Design forays from different generations trap the ghosts of literary figures like Tom Wolfe and Carl Sandburg. Yet Asheville does not turn its back upon either its hippies or its hillbillies. Find a drum circle […]

Second-Banana Blues: Veep, cringe comedy, and laughing at Washington so you don’t cry by Michael Nolan

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Political beliefs are great at ruining dinners, holidays, and family gatherings. In the Washington, D.C., of TV show Veep, they can ruin your career. And even at best, they—to say nothing of a conscience—are irrelevant. The show’s creator, Armando Iannucci, doesn’t waste our time with fraught meditations on whether itshould be this way. Just keeping up with how […]

Explicit Lyrics: How the music crusaders of the 80s and 90s lost to the Internet by Chris Kjorness

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Recently, artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm released a collection of graphs charting changes in pop song lyrics. These images reveal what many critics of contemporary culture have been saying for years: Popular music has become increasingly crass. Maybe this shift is the handiwork of the usual suspects—greedy corporations, say, or an increasingly godless society. But it’s just […]

Proud Little Englander: Words from Victorian England continue to haunt advocates of freedom and peace by B.K. Marcus

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A battle of words from Victorian England continues to haunt advocates of freedom and peace in the 21st century. British Sky Broadcasting’s An Idiot Abroad is the latest attempt by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the creators of the BBC’s The Office, to find humor in humiliating and ridiculing their friend Karl Pilkington—this time by sending him around the […]