Stellan Abrahamsson – Schwerige eller Sveitz (Freedomfest 2018)

2024-02-03

In his 1927 book Liberalism, the radical classical liberal and economist Ludwig von Mises took a strict and expansive view in favor of secession. Specifically, he noted that respect for the right of self-determination required extant states to allow the separation of new polities seeking secession. He writes:
The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be

2024-01-10

“Who controls the past now, controls the future. Who controls the present now, controls the past.”
That is from “Testify,” a song by newly minted rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Famers Rage against the Machine. I don’t know if Phillip W. Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research is fan enough to be familiar with that, but I bet he knows the original source: George Orwell’s 1984.
Whether or not it informed a recent study he coauthored is unclear, but that line has been ringing in my head ever since I read Magness’s summary.
Magness, along with Jeremy Horpedahl and Marcus Witcher, professors of economics and history respectively at the University of Central Arkansas, discovered differences between how college-level introductory economics and history textbooks document the causes of the

2023-12-14

So far, the White House has justified its unwavering support for Ukraine on lofty grounds such as defending democracy and freedom—both in Ukraine and in the West. However, with the American public—who bears the cost of the war in Ukraine—turning against it, several Republican lawmakers questioning its purpose and affordability, and elections approaching, the Biden administration has changed the messaging on the war. Its new line is that sending weapons to Ukraine is actually an investment in American industry, strengthening the economy and creating new jobs.
Joe Biden’s new argument fits well into the flawed Keynesian logic of “Bidenomics” in which economic prosperity is built upon generous public spending for infrastructure, semiconductors, and clean energy rather than on free markets. It

2023-12-07

As with the Republican party and the conservative movement in the United States, conservatism in the United Kingdom does not constitute a coherent ideological movement. It is, rather, a coalition of ideological groups and interest groups. Some of these are fairly libertarian in nature, as with the Thatcherites. On the other hand, conservative parties and activist groups also contain traditionalist conservatives and nationalists, neither of which are primarily or necessarily free-market or laissez-faire in orientation. The general free-market orientation of conservatives tend to come from the fact that they are anti-Left and anti-socialist. In the UK, as elsewhere, to be anti-Left means in many cases to be de facto pro-market (to varying extents).
A similar phenomenon has prevailed in the