The Humble Libertarian original

This Christmas season, to much fanfare, Walmart brought back their layaway program. For those Internet intellectuals among us too rich and separate from the ails of the working man to understand the incentives behind layaway plans, let me explain the concept. By purchasing an item on layaway, you select your item, put down a deposit and make regular payments until the item is fully paid off - without interest. Only then are you allowed to take the item home. ...wait, what? Yes, that's how layaway plans work. There is no "getting the item" early advantage as with a credit system. So, we are left with only 2 possible benefits for those participating. 1) Fear of the item running out of stock. Putting the item on layaway guarantees you securing the item once you are able to fully pay for it. However, unless the item in question is a hot Christmas toy, Walmart largely sells commodities. In the majority of scenarios, there is no real fear of the item going out of sto...

This video should be everywhere! Republicans watch as Romney tries to rewrite history to defend his socialist actions as Governor of Massachusetts. Is this the best Republicans can do to limit the size, role, and influence of government in 2012? Major tip of my hat to Right Klik , via: Left Coast Rebel Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

With more and more potential 2012 GOP candidates making their way out of the woodwork, prepare your ears for a couple years of Ronald Reagan re-imagination. Now, most of this, I don't have a problem with. As long as they're comparing themselves with Campaign Reagan. Because Campaign Reagan was quite interesting. As was Campaign George W. Bush in 2000. Of course, neither acted consistently with the libertarian and small-government ideals they vowed to. But, there's one specific piece of Reagan re-imagination that's really been bothering me lately. The idea that... RONALD REAGAN KILLED COMMUNISM. As if, in the 1980s, communism was simply an evil but equal alternative to capitalism. Both capable of winning over the world, but up to the Jedi stockpiling powers and elderly eloquence of a world leader with Reagan's gravitas in order to push the right political buttons to sway the world in the right direction. Completely ignoring the mass poverty and economic instabili...

It is odd to find the word “dialectics” conjoined with anything remotely having to do with “libertarianism.” And this is, perhaps, a result of the profound socialist influence on contemporary thought. Say the word “dialectics” and what might come to mind is the “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” waltz usually associated with Hegel (even though that triad more appropriately belongs to Fichte). Or one might think of the “historical materialism” of the Marxists, who view communism as the ultimate “synthesis.” Or one might even think of the claims made by some that dialectics is a means of “resolving” actual, logical contradictions, a means of showing that “A” and “non-A” are one and the same. It is no coincidence that the same people who dismiss dialectics as an assault on logic are often the same people who view it as the methodology of socialism. But even some of the proponents of socialism would agree, for they have dismissed logic as a “bourgeois” prejudice, while viewing exploitation as t...

Elderly patient in a wheelchair on a hospital ward. Photograph: Bruce Ayres/Getty Images  I’ve commented before about the sub-par government-run healthcare system in the United Kingdom, including patients dying of malnutrition, patients suffering needless pain and discomfort, and patients dying from poor care (additional examples at this link ). I’ve even commented on the NHS wasting money on politically correct nonsense while letting patient care deteriorate. Now we have another distasteful example showing why it is a big mistake to put bureaucrats in charge of health care. This BBC story is a sobering look at America’s future with a government-run healthcare system. Read the rest of Dan Mitchell's post at International Liberty Dan Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute Filed by Grant Davies , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

A long running debate among the anarchists, especially between individualist and more communist type, centers around the justice of wealth disparities. Certainly the existence of the State serves to enrich particular interests at the expense of others, but in anarchy would the rich dominate society – just as they do with the State? Even if we could immediately switch off the institutions that forcibly manipulate society, there is danger that the legacy of privilege and accumulated wealth could persist for some time, distorting markets and continuing the frustrate the balance of power between individuals. Individualist anarchists have had a variety of responses to the problems of historical property and wealth distribution. Even anarcho-capitalists who see large scale social coordination as the natural direction of society have different views, such as Hans Hermann Hoppe’s theory of a natural elite and Murray Rothbard’s support of syndicalist takeover of State-supported corporations. On...

With another State of the Union address in our rear view — and all of its “Greatest Show on Earth” excitement reverberating through the political firmament — the mainstream’s pallid analysis can begin. Pundits and politicians, their animated views all firmly grafted onto a broader, elite orthodoxy, have wasted no time in getting down to explaining “what it all means.” By itself, the word socialism requires no statism whatsoever; instead it denotes a set of outcomes as an answer to the “Social Question” raised by disparities of wealth and economic power in society caused by statist intervention. On that account, it’s very possible to be both a socialist and an advocate for a truly free market, and American anarchists like Benjamin Tucker advocated for just this union of concepts “free market” and “socialism.” Read the rest of David D'Amato's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

Canada today is most clearly a socialist nation, but without delving back to the earlier part of the 20th Century it is not apparent why. Was the culprit imported egalitarian ideals from Europe? Perhaps the transformation of a lingering admiration of authoritarianism from the rule of the Queen? Or did this force- consisting mostly of force, come from a closer source? Surely the neighbour to the South, with it’s republican and market based institutions had no part in the matter. Surely America is blameless. As we shall see, this simply is not so. Between 1898 and 1915, over one million farmers came to Canada from America, moving mostly to the western provinces. Many of these farmers were enamored and associated with socialist groups in the United States. They were wheat farmers and felt slighted by the railroads and banks, feeling that the market was working against them. For roughly two decades they organized into a rabble of splintered groups comprised of farmers, socia...