
How Capitalist-Abolitionists Fought Slavery
A capitalist benefactor of the American abolitionist movement used his business to wage war against slavery. He ended up revolutionizing the American financial industry in the process.
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Rothbard’s First Impressions on Free Banking in Scotland Were Correct
Nothing in Rothbard’s later view manages to cast doubt on his earlier view and White’s thesis, much less refute them.
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The Anti-Capitalist Ideology of Slavery
The anti-capitalist ideology of southern slaveholders presents a conundrum for historians who erroneously equate the plantation economy with the free market.
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The Cultic Milieu and the Rise of Violent Fringe
The notion of the cultic milieu helps explain many aspects of today’s politics, such as the rise of movements like the alt-right, and the growth of fringe beliefs across the ideological spectrum.
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The Past Is a Nice Place to Visit. You Wouldn’t Want to Live There.
Should we study and learn from the past? Of course we should. Should we yearn for the past, seek to return there, and perhaps undo the progress of the last several centuries? Of course we shouldn’t.
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The Capitalist Achievement of Recorded Music
Or in the musical context, the capitalist achievement consists not of softer seats at the opera for the king and queen but access to a practically infinite library for pennies a day.
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Competition Is the Path to Financial Inclusion
Financial regulators appear to fear the creation of a few, small experimental entrants more than they fear the failure of the nation’s many, uber-risky megabanks.
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The Social History of the Picnic
Thanks to the rise of prosperity and commercial society, picnicking was finally something for all to enjoy, not only the rarefied elite.
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How to Do Reparations the Right Way
What African-Americans, poor whites, and Native Americans want, and what they need, is what Adam Smith called “a tolerable administration of justice.”
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The Statistical Errors of the Reparations Agenda
There is a great moral gravity to discussions of slavery. Academics owe the public an honest, accurate, and scientific assessment of slavery’s history, including its economic dimensions. Unfortunately, a key statistic being used in the reparations debate fails that test.
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