Francis Hutcheson on Liberty

On Moral Liberty

The Freeman Ideas on Liberty

O n average, Federal Reserve chairmen come and go at about the same rate as U.S. presidents. Dating from the creation of this country's central bank (1913), we have seen sixteen presidents (Wilson to Bush) and fourteen Federal Reserve Chairmen (Hamlin to Bernanke). The Fed Chairmanship, however, has seen more variation in years of service—Franklin D. Roosevelt notwithstanding. Spanning four pre...

Notes on Francis Fukuyama

As the end of the century [in this case the end of the 80s] approaches, the triumph of Western liberal democracy again seems the inevitability that it did at the turn of the previous century. This is an absolute triumph of the Western idea. It is seen in the failure of all viable alternative ideas, and also in the spread of consumer culture around the world. This may signal the end of history i...

Liberty or death; don't tread on me.

Many jurisdictions require cyclists to wear bicycle helmets. The UK is currently not one of these. However, an increasing number of interest groups, including the British Medical Association, want to change the status quo. They argue that mandatory cycle helmet laws will reduce the incidence of head injuries and that this will be both good for cyclists (because they will suffer fewer head injur...

Liberty, Equality, Religiosity1

In this paper we study the role of religiosity in political choices such as redistribution and individual liberties. To a standard model with consumption and effort, we add a third good: civil liberties with a cap established by law. More liberties, like divorce, abortion, gender parity, or gay marriage, may be considered good by the secular and detrimental by the religious individuals. With st...