For hundreds of years, thinkers have tried to answer this problem by attempting to understand the origin of laws and rights ...

The modern state is a contingent historical development, born in blood- - not a permanent or inevitable feature of human society. In concentrating decision- making power, the state divests citizens ...

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 origin of the idea that liberty could be preserved through the separation of powers endures through the arguments of Polybius. Paul Meany is the editor for intellectual history at Lib er tar i an ...

Andrew Jackson conflated his own will with the will of the people, and ran roughshod over the Constitution’s constraints on his power in pursuit of goals that were often contemptible. Miles Smith IV ...

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 ...

Guaranteeing a minimum income to the poor is better than our current system of welfare, Zwolinski argues. And it can be justified by libertarian principles. Still skeptical? Well, here are three ...

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. Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at ...

"Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property." So declares article 17 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of ...

While Karl Marx hated Pierre- Joseph Proudhon and his philosophy of mutualism, a libertarian can find in it much to appreciate. Although Herbert Spencer has been rightly regarded as the most ...

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 ...

In his first essay in a new series on John Locke, Smith explains some essential features of Locke’s case for private property. George H. Smith was formerly Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for ...