Author: Gary North

One month before I joined Ron Paul’s Congressional staff in Washington, my article against school vouchers was published in The Freeman (May 1976). That was a long time ago. My article was directed against Professor Friedman’s chapter favoring school vouchers in his 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom. School vouchers are a way to let parents have some choice in where to send their children to school. The local government issues vouchers to parents of school-age children. Local schools can exchange vouchers for money from the government. If schools can attract parents who will pay partial tuition in the form of … Continue reading →

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A common cliché of protectionism is this one: the United States government needs to negotiate better deals for American companies. It is time to call a spade a spade. This is fascism. Fascism is the economics of a government-business alliance. There should be no government-business alliance. The government should not be involved in business. Whenever government gets involved in business, it is always done to favor certain businesses at the expense of all the rest of them. It always involves a repression of decision-making on the part of individual buyers and sellers. There are no exceptions. There are always going … Continue reading →

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Take a look at this chart of the wealth of nations. Chart: Visual Capitalist This chart indicates just how dominant the United States of America is economically. Whenever you hear about the decline of the United States in terms of productivity, especially manufacturing, please keep in mind this chart. China is catching up in terms of gross productivity, but in terms of productivity per capita, it is still a backward nation. At least two-thirds of China’s population lives on poverty-stricken small family farms. It is still a village economy. It is going to take decades for those people to drag … Continue reading →

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“When our friends get elected, they aren’t our friends any more.” — M. Stanton Evans My deceased friend Stan Evans became deservedly famous for this law of politics. This law applies to high-level appointments. Back in the days when I was starting out in my career, Alan Greenspan wrote an article for Ayn Rand’s Objectivist newsletter. It was pro-gold standard. It has been reprinted all over the Web. Back then, only a handful of us knew about it. I reviewed it in 2007 here. Greenspan personally launched the modern era of extreme intervention by the Federal Reserve in order to … Continue reading →

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Fifty years ago, I added a subtitle to the manuscript of my book, published the next year, Marx’s Religion of Revolution: The Doctrine of Creative Destruction (1968). I changed that subtitle two decades later in the revised edition: Regeneration Through Chaos. I changed the cover, too. There was a doctrine of creative destruction in the 19th century. Karl Marx’s rival, the revolutionary anarchist Michael Bakunin, promoted it. He was a revolutionary. He saw worker violence against the state as productive. But Bakunin was as hostile to the free market as he was to the state. He never described how the … Continue reading →

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Going back to the Egyptians in the ancient world, education has always been based on some version of the textbook. The textbook came into its own in the second half of the 15th century. That was because of Gutenberg. But textbook-based education had always been used, except they were not printed textbooks. They were provided by boring, droning lecturers who had the students write down their boring lectures in copybooks to memorize. There was nothing creative about any of it. A textbook in the modern world is a book that is written for a committee in a particular academic field. … Continue reading →

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It has been a decade since I wrote my son’s obituary. I posted it the next day. Lew Rockwell posted it the day after I posted it. Writing it eased the pain. Writers often write to ease the pain. When you are depressed, work. Work is a productive pain-killing drug. Warning: If you ever get tingling sensations in your heels, and they move up your calves, then thighs, always moving higher, year by year, get to the Mayo Clinic. They will become spasms when they reach your lower back. They will keep moving up until they are inside your skull. … Continue reading →

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Herbert Hoover was worth $4 million in 1914 as a mining engineer and mine owner. This was before World War I, when the dollar bought 25 times more than it does today. He was good at what he did in the private sector. He gained national fame as a World War I relief administrator: Belgian relief. The Germans let him do this because it freed up food for the German Army: no need to feed occupied Belgium. This is now how the history books tell it. This was the next phase of the legend of “Hoover the Engineer.” Harding appointed … Continue reading →

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The Washington press corps has long since lost any trace of adult behavior. Once a President stands in front of them and asks for questions, the press corps turns into a shouting pack of petulant teenagers. They shout out their questions in a cacophony of chaos. Here is how Trump can take control. First, as each reporter enters the room, he/she is handed a 3×5 card and an instruction sheet. The instruction sheet says this. You have been given a 3×5 card. This card is for one question. Make it a good one. Make it precise. Please print clearly. President … Continue reading →

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The victory of Assad over the rebels in Aleppo this week marked the reversal of a foreign policy coup that began in Washington in the immediate aftermath of America’s Saudi-funded victory in the Desert Storm war in February 1991. The coup began no later than March 1991. The next phase began in November 2001 in Afghanistan. The third phase began on March 20, 2003 in Iraq. There were other phases. But two phases remain: Syria and Iran. Syria has been reversed. Iran is still on the back burner. Trump may remove it from even the back burner. Current Prices on … Continue reading →

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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is just another political hack. Like politicians in general, he does not understand economics. He does not understand the law of unanticipated consequences. He does not understand that government is dumb. On November 8, he unilaterally and without warning declared the two highest value paper currency units obsolete: the 500-rupee ($7) and 1,000-rupee notes ($14). They will no longer be money in 50 days, he announced. That will be on December 28. These two denomination bills constituted 86% of the nation’s currency. To turn it back into currency of value, India’s currency holders most go … Continue reading →

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If I were Lew Rockwell, I would schedule the next Austrian Scholars Conference program in terms of this topic: “What government program should we shut down first?” I would contact all of my heavy hitters who like to stand up in front of an audience and throw hand grenades. I would challenge each of them to pick just one institution, budget, or other regulatory monstrosities for a complete abolition, before all of the others. I would bring in enough speakers to present two days of lectures. Each speaker would have to make a lawyer’s brief for cutting a single agency … Continue reading →

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Challenge: Which institution would I de-fund 100%? I would eliminate all funding for education, including all of the military academies. Most people would probably choose a federal program to eliminate. I wouldn’t. I think all government begins with self-government and then extends to three institutions: family, church, and state. My slogan is “Politics fourth.” Judicial sovereignty lies with the individual. Why? Because the individual is responsible for his own actions. If individuals do not govern themselves, there is not sufficient power anywhere else in society to force all men to do the right thing, or the predictable thing, or the … Continue reading →

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“We had about 4.5 million barrels of oil out there and all of it was vulnerable to .50-caliber bullets. Had the Japanese destroyed the oil, it would have prolonged the war another two years.” — Admiral Chester Nimitz Seventy-five years ago today, the Japanese Imperial Navy launched the most suicidal naval attack in modern history. It was strategically suicidal. It was also tactically suicidal. The fleet’s commander, Admiral Nagumo, announced that it had been a great success, turned the fleet around, and sailed back to Japan. Six months later, as he voluntarily went down with his ship at Midway in … Continue reading →

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On Friday evening, I went with my daughter, who lives in Nashville, and my wife to see the Roland White Band. I took with me a CD of White’s 1967 performance in the week that he joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. I intended to give it to him. I had been sent a copy by his ex-banjo player, who somehow had kept a copy. He had invited me to attend. I did. That was a long time ago. White’s band plays once a month at the Station Inn. The venue is something out of the mid-1970’s. It is in … Continue reading →

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