Winter 2013 • Vol. 8, No. 4

Exposes major problems with libertarianism, compares it to radical capitalism, and shows why only the latter provides a viable defense of liberty.

Picks up where Thompson’s essay “The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of Our Time” (TOS Winter 2012–13) left off; asks and answers questions such as: What would a fully free market in education look like? How would it work? Would it provide quality, affordable education for all children, including those from lower-income families? If so, how?

Surveys the life and accomplishments of this remarkable scientist, who, “once internationally revered, is now largely unknown—remembered, if at all, only for his invention of pasteurization”; shows why “Pasteur deserves to be remembered as more than a portmanteau on the side of a milk jug” and why he ought to be remembered instead as an “adventurer of science” and as “a light that brightens more and more.”

Apple Inc. revolutionized desktop computing—and then tablet computing—with its user-friendly operating systems and hardware interfaces now mimicked throughout the industry. Apple revolutionized the telephone industry with its touch-screen iPhone, a product that immediately became the benchmark for Apple’s competitors. Apple revolutionized the music industry with iTunes, a music player and…

On July 18, the city of Detroit declared that it had reached insolvency, and, with $11 billion in debt, filed for bankruptcy. Since the announcement, numerous pundits have penned postmortems attempting to explain Detroit’s decline, but Daniel Hannan has gotten closest to the essence of the issue. In his piece…

In his recent National Affairs essay, “Religion and the American Public,” George Will writes: “I approach the question of religion and American life from the vantage point of an expanding minority,” namely, Americans with no religious affiliation, “a cohort that the Pew public-opinion surveys call the ‘nones.’” Will’s essay is…

Rebecca Cullers of Adweek claims that marketer and so-called “consumer advocate” Alex Bogusky has a “foolproof way of bringing back 1 million U.S. jobs.” Bogusky says in a YouTube video, “It’s as simple as this: Every time you buy something, ensure it was made in America.” He immediately backs off…

Allison Benedikt’s article for Slate, “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person,” is morally atrocious. Benedikt argues that parents should intentionally subject their children to a poor-quality education in the government’s “public” schools for the sake of attempting to make those schools better for…

As I wrote last December, the U.S. government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) forced out of business Maxfield and Oberton, the producers of the adult toys Buckyballs—small powerful magnets that can be arranged in intricate designs. I summarized: [B]ecause a few parents irresponsibly let their toddlers eat Buckyballs, and because…

In late June, a coalition of religious leaders fighting against ObamaCare’s contraception mandate, which forces employer health insurance plans to provide birth control coverage, rejected the Obama administration's “final compromise” on the issue. The proposed “compromise” consists of a range of administrative changes, but these tweaks hardly satisfy the religious…

Is health care a right? For decades, American politicians have enacted laws on the presumption that it is and that government therefore has a responsibility to provide it to individuals who cannot or choose not to buy it themselves. These laws, which include Medicare, Medicaid, and now ObamaCare, have resulted…

California raisin farmers Marvin and Laura Horne decided to sell all of the raisins they produced—and thereby ran afoul of the law. As NPR reports, the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC) dictates what percentage of his raisin crop a California producer is permitted to sell each year. The RAC—backed by the…

[caption id="attachment_30881" align="alignright" width="233"] Image: Nick Ares[/caption] The History Channel’s “reality” television show Pawn Stars not only reveals interesting facts about eclectic household items, it also demonstrates the value of pawnshops, how this business works, and, in so doing, the nature of trade in general. The pawnshop owners and their…

[Published on September 11, 2013; unfortunately still relevant.] Twelve years have passed since September 11, 2001, when Islamic terrorists attacked the United States, murdered nearly three thousand Americans, and tore apart the lives of countless more. During these years, Islamic terrorists have continued plotting, attacking, and killing Americans, not only…

With this week’s DVD release of Star Trek into Darkness, now is a good time to evaluate or reevaluate the oft-stated Star Trek claim, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (or “the one”). This claim is made in various scenes in the films, including in…

Denbury Resources has announced the startup of the first oil production project in Montana that uses the “enhanced oil recovery” technique of carbon dioxide (CO2) flooding. In this process, CO2 is pumped underground into an oil-bearing rock formation. The CO2 mixes with the oil, releasing it from the surrounding rock,…

The phrase in vogue today with advocates of minimum wage laws—laws forcing employers to pay employees more than they otherwise would—is “living wage.” But, apart from laws mandating a minimum wage, this phrase has no referent in reality. And laws dictating minimum wages are immoral. To get a sense of…

Leftist media including PBS and Slate are jumping all over themselves to publish or review the work of Mariana Mazzucato, who claims (writing for Slate) that “the state, not the private sector, [is] the most decisive player” in developing “pioneering technologies.” It’s easy to see why leftists want to promote…

Scott McConnell reviews The Mark of Zorro, directed by Rouben Mamoulian. zorro.jpg

Scott McConnell reviews Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Richard M. Salsman reviews Mind vs. Money: The War between Intellectuals and Capitalism, by Alan S. Kahan.

Robert Garmong reviews The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, by David Stockman.

Daniel Wahl reviews The Emergent Reader Series, by Laura Appleton-Smith. emergent-reader.jpg

Kevin Douglas reviews The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves, by James Tooley.