Classical Liberalism

The Socialist Generation Debate

“The information required to ‘calculate’ the correct choice literally does not exist until market processes are allowed to generate information about the relative opportunity costs of various resources.” ~ Michael Munger

Dr. Seuss, Philosopher Extraordinaire

“It happens that, 75 years after Seuss wrote it, Thidwick turns out to be a good metaphor Western democracies.” ~ Bruce Rottman

How Arrogance Threatens Freedom

“Those who demand special treatment from impersonal, anonymous, and uncontrollable processes lack humility. They want credit for their achievements, and they blame others when their goals fall short. With such arrogance, freedom is indeed impossible.” ~ Barry Brownstein

An Approach to Teaching Rawls And Income Inequality

“Far from representing an outcome chosen behind the veil of ignorance, political pressures will always be driven by full knowledge of the benefits realized by self-interested actors, even if they mouth formulaic invocations of ‘social justice’ while they do it.” ~ Michael C. Munger

Cypherpunks, Galt’s Gulch, and Bitcoin

“Whatever one’s view on Rand, there is no denying her strong influence on the early Cypherpunks who ‘wrote code’ in a decades-long attempt to realize some cyberspace version of the laissez-faire capitalism that she boldly advocated for in real space.” ~ Emile Phaneuf

If Only Someone Made the Moral Case for Capitalism

“If only there were someone who could have warned the new intellectuals that they ‘must fight for capitalism, not as a ‘practical’ issue, not as an economic issue, but, with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue. That is what capitalism deserves, and nothing less will save it.'” ~ Robertas Bakula

Sanguine about the State: A Critique of Political Science

“Political scientists should be less sanguine about the concept of the state itself and more welcoming to the concept of governance through spontaneous order. And that is because non-state organization entails less coercion.” ~ James E. Hanley

What Are We For? A Challenge for Classical Liberals in the Academy

“The solution, the way to navigate the rapids downstream of where we are now, is clear, but not easy. It is to refocus on making the moral case for capitalism, on providing a positive, optimistic vision of the world that can be remade.” ~ Michael C. Munger

Downsizing the Administrative State

“To more fully restore the separation of powers intended by the founders, SCOTUS must soundly repudiate the Chevron Doctrine, and assert the primacy of an alternative.” ~ David Gillette & Warren Barge

Will 2024 Be the Ultimate Expressive Voting Election?

“Campaigning almost solely for expressive votes in a vastly divided country threatens to put a prudent government out of the question, and as Jeremy Collier wrote, ‘Prudence is the necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.'” ~ Gary M. Galles

Selfish Libertarians and Socialist Conservatives?: The Foundations of the Libertarian-Conservative Debate

Milton Friedman (Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers)