FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s was not a carbon copy of Wang Anshi’s New Policies of the 1070s, of course, but they share an activist, centralizing tendency noted by FDR's own Vice President and Agriculture Secretary. Pictured: sketch of Song Dynasty hydraulic grain mill (Wikimedia).

What the barbarians did to Rome, hoodlums on a smaller scale did to Minneapolis, New York, Portland, and Chicago in 2020, but for this significant difference: The ones who assaulted Rome were foreigners.

No taxpayer funds financed those 2-1/2 billion books. A remarkable project of private, voluntary, civil society action by genuinely good people.

Under authoritarian czars, followed by totalitarian communists, followed by the fascist Putin, Russian kleptocracies have incurred the lasting hatred of their neighbors because they won’t leave them alone.

When the captive peoples of Beijing’s tyranny are someday liberated, we will look back and likely credit Teng’s music for contributing to the revolutionary spirit that finally got the job done. My latest at FEE.

Some might say the prisoners at Kengir embarked on a fool’s errand when they rose in righteous fury against the regime that tormented them. Their heroism was not in vain.

As FEE looks to its 80th anniversary in 2026, we can be proud that in 1967, Leonard Read reinforced the importance of moral principles to the freedom philosophy.