Recent Posts
If you’re curious what an absolute dictatorship looks like—one of the very worst in all history—this is a story you’ll want to read. The power-driven wickedness of Wang Mang.
The fact that free people are not equal economically is actually a cause for rejoicing. Economic inequality, when it stems from the freedom of creative individuals and not from political power, testifies to the fact that people are being themselves, each putting his uniqueness to work in ways that are fulfilling to himself and of value to others.
"When he hit a brick wall, he didn’t retreat to his sitting room; instead, he created opposing and influential institutions. He saw liberty as God’s intention for humanity and would not abide the presumptuous claims of earthly governments to diminish it for our own good. This was a man confidently, persuasively, and fearlessly principled" -- John Hendrickson and Lawrence Reed at Iowans for Tax Relief. For more on Machen, see also “God’s Forgotten Libertarian” at https://tinyurl.com/525hjj6c
James A. Garfield was a good man who likely would have gone down in history as a great president had he lived. Garfield County, Montana, can be very proud of its name.
Photo: With Raghavendar (Ravi) Askani in Atlanta on June 10, 2025, celebrating the translation of “I, Pencil” into Telugu. An estimated 96 million people, mostly in central and southeastern India, speak the language. Leonard Read would be very proud. Ravi is co-founder with Venkatesh Geriti of the Swatantrata Center, publisher of this edition.
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). Spanish version here: https://informeorwell.com/opinion/las-similitudes-del-new-deal-de-roosevelt-en-1933-y-el-fracasado-programa-economico-chino-de-la-dinastia-song/
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.
About Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became president of FEE in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s. Prior to becoming FEE’s president, he served for 21 years as president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan. He also taught economics full-time from 1977 to 1984 at Northwood University in Michigan and chaired its department of economics from 1982 to 1984.
A champion for liberty, Reed has authored nearly 2,000 newspaper columns and articles and dozens of articles in magazines and journals in the United States and abroad. He has visited 87 countries.