Author Archives: Mark Friedman

[NOTE: I accuse the authors of the article discussed below of lying. Clearly, I cannot know whether they are guilty of a conscious effort to deceive, but their erroneous allegations have all the appropriate indicia. For one, I find it incredible that two well-educated people who consider themselves knowledgeable enough to write on this subject do not understand that Egypt has an eight-mile border with Gaza, nor how critical this fact is to a proper understanding of this subject. Second, I called these authors out on their errors on another person’s Facebook wall, and they did not correct any of them or even respond. I will let my readers judge for themselves].

Apart from the “apartheid” lie, it seems that the most popular one circulating about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that Israel is inflicting unbearable suffering on the people of the Gaza Strip by turning it into the world’s largest open-air prison. Here is a classic example, written by two purported libertarians/classic liberals, Akiva Malamet and Shikha Dalmia, made even more egregious by its timing. That is, in the immediate aftermath of the monstrous, massive terrorist slaughter committed by Hamas in central Israel on October 7, 2023 for which many faculty members and students at our elite universities offer excuses.

  Here, in stark terms, is this hideous lie:

But if Hamas emerged and, what is more, flourished, it cannot be denied that this is at least partly because of Israel’s cruel 16-year-long blockade of Gaza and the brutal occupation of the West Bank….to prevent Gaza from militarizing after Hamas came into power, Israel sharply constrained the flow of people and goods between Gaza, territorial Israel and the West Bank, turning the spigot of free movement on and off at its discretion. Since 2007, the two million Palestinians in the 365 square kilometer Gaza strip have been subjected to an air, land, and sea embargo with only the minimum entry of goods allowed. Exports have nearly stopped. Meanwhile, Israel supervises all the international aid to Gaza….Hamas’s meticulously planned attack has exposed the spectacular failure of this approach to national security. But this approach has succeeded in turning Gaza, which many have appropriately compared to an open air prison, into one of the poorest societies on earth (my emphasis).

Continue Reading »

As explained here, when a community or nation enforces some rough approximation of the rule of law, capitalism inevitably follows. When left alone, entrepreneurs will invest and/or produce in order to improve their own lives, and in so doing will benefit those who purchase the goods and services they offer.  Whatever its moral virtues, a system of free markets would understandably have very few supporters if it were economically inferior to competing political economies. Fortunately, capitalism is better at both preserving rights and producing the “greatest good for the greatest number.”

It does this (ideally) by means of the efficient allocation of capital and by promoting fierce competition for consumer dollars, forcing producers to continuously drive down prices and to improve quality over time, or lose market share to firms that do. Another way to express this is the term “market discipline.” It is easy to list once dominant corporations that were humbled or driven out of business by firms that created better business models or innovated new technologies: Sears Roebuck, Compaq Computers, Kodak, Polaroid, Circuit City, Pan American Airlines, Blockbuster, etc.  Of course, the state obstructs and corrupts this salubrious discipline when it arbitrarily confers advantages on some market participants and handicaps others, or when it creates a “moral hazard” by subsidizing irresponsible behaviors.

As you must know, we are now facing severe loss of confidence if not an outright crisis in our banking system, with dangerous economic spillover effects, following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bridge Bank, and the potential failure of Republic Bank. Notably, since the advent of federal deposit insurance on January 1, 1934, market discipline has largely been eliminated from our banking system.  Until the most recent full-blown banking crisis in 2007, this insurance was limited to $100,000 per customer/per bank, when it was then raised to $250,000. Continue Reading »

We are now, I believe, on the brink of a prolonged, major recession brought on by decades of massive government over-spending and a Federal Reserve Bank that has been all too eager to accommodate the related debt with near zero interest rates.  I analyzed the Fed in Chapter 6 of my 2017 book, Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World, but in light of our present circumstances it may be a good time to revisit this subject, for it seems that we have learned nothing.  In my book, I evaluate the laws and institutions of our state through the lens of natural rights libertarianism, loosely constrained by utilitarian considerations; that is, while I hold that rights are entitled to great moral weight, I concede that they may be overridden to prevent grave harms.  I argue that under this standard, with the few exceptions recognized by classical liberals, like national defense, law enforcement and, if all else fails, assistance of innocent persons in dire need (such as young children), all other activities of our Nanny/Welfare state should cease forthwith.

   The Fed is an easy case to make, both in terms of its inherently rights-violating character and the absence of any consequentialist justification.  In terms of the former, I point out in my book that by reason of the very broad mandate given it by Congress, the Fed has virtually unconstrained discretion in setting monetary policy, producing results that are not stable or predictable.  Its machinations inevitably benefit some groups of citizens at the expense of others.  At least in the short and medium term, low interest rates advantage those connected in one way or the other with the residential or commercial real estate development industries, and stock market investors (as equities become more attractive relative to fixed income investments).  Retirees and other investors seeking secure sources of income are harmed. Continue Reading »

I have decided to repost this earlier essay in light of the apparently massive fraud committed by Samuel Bankman-Fried, the son of Professor Barbara Fried, whose egregious intellectual dishonesty I called out in my essay. Does the flagrant intellectual dishonesty of a parent infect the mind of an impressionable child, leading them down  a dark and twisted path? Does it contribute? You be the judge. 

https://naturalrightslibertarian.com/2011/05/style-and-substance-in-asu-a-reply-to-barbara-fried/

Free market economists are acutely sensitive to the power of incentives to shape the behavior of market participants.  For example, it seems certain that if the price of some commodity falls, consumers will ceteris paribus purchase more; if the government substantially raises the corporate tax rate, businesses will try to maintain their profits by raising prices or lowering costs; if the price of labor in manufacturing dramatically increases in some jurisdiction, employers will relocate or automate; etc.  

   Public choice theorists have observed the comparable influence of incentives in the political process, identifying and fruitfully analyzing such phenomena as “the free rider problem,” the disproportionate influence of “single issue voters,” bureaucratic empire-building, and so forth.  Nowhere is it more critically important to get these incentives right than in the administration of justice, one of the core governmental functions. Sadly, in the recently concluded Kyle Rittenhouse trial, we have witnessed the latest example in a long line of prosecutorial misconduct, which is directly attributable to the perverse incentives faced by these judicial officers.   Continue Reading »

Danny Frederick and my short paper, “A Weak Case Against Open Borders–A Critique of Joshi,” was just published in Cosmos + Taxis.  While I am pleased that the editors chose to publish it, this is nevertheless a melancholy event inasmuch as it highlights for me just how much I miss my friend and co-author, who passed away two months ago. This was certainly among the last things he worked on prior to his very premature death. Continue Reading »

I learned earlier this week that Danny Frederick, my good friend and co-author, passed away after a long struggle with cancer. Although I feel we were close, this was a long-distance, internet friendship, as I never spoke to him in person. We met online about a decade ago when we found ourselves arguing a few times on the same side at the now-defunct, “Bleeding Heart Libertarian” site. One thing I noticed early on was how polite and gracious he was even to the less than stellar intellects you inevitably encounter on such blogs. I subsequently learned this was his critical rationalism at work, seizing every opportunity to deepen one’s knowledge by engaging with a variety of different perspectives, including ones that seem clearly false.   Continue Reading »

In April of last year, Danny Frederick and I published our paper, “The Liberal Case for Immigration Control,” in the peer-reviewed journal Cosmos + Taxis. In it, we articulated what we continue to regard as the best libertarian/classical liberal argument against open borders. The forthcoming Routledge Companion to Libertarianism, Zwolinski and Powell eds., will include a chapter on immigration written by Hrishikesh Joshi. Although Joshi considers a variety of arguments favoring limits on free migration, he ignores ours. We believe this is a mistake, and have drafted a short Note explaining why, which is linked to here.

In one of its opening acts the Biden Administration promulgated an executive order that sets forth its position regarding federal anti-discrimination policy under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This order may have far reaching effects on the federal government’s policies regarding discrimination in employment, eligibility for military service, and athletics at publicly financed institutions. It is the latter that we will examine here.

The order reads in relevant part: “Every person should be treated with respect and dignity… and… should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. The unstated implication of this is that, as Abigail Shrier observes in her recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department.”

She then notes that many authorities foresee that such a policy will have a devastating impact of women’s sports because male athletes that go through puberty without hormone suppression therapy will inevitably enjoy an insurmountable advantage over women in any athletic contest involving speed, strength, size, agility, and so forth.[i] Ms. Shrier cites as an example the case of “the American runner Allyson Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high-school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it.” This huge disparity is present in every track and field event, as shown in this useful database.[ii] Continue Reading »

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden campaigned for a national minimum wage of $15 per hour to replace the currently moribund floor of $7.25. President-elect Biden has recently doubled down. With the Democrats also now controlling both houses of Congress, this may become law, subject to the whims of just a few key senators, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  

   If there were a Hall of Fame for truly awful economic ideas, the minimum wage would be a charter member. As I have previously argued, it is clearly rights-violating in that it, in Nozick’s memorable words, “prohibits capitalist acts between consenting adults.” Moreover, to the extent that utilitarianism can yield determinate results, it flunks even under this standard, as it harms the most vulnerable members of society to benefit the better off.