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Lawrence W. Reed

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The Henry Ford of Shoes →

February 1, 2021

In September 1991, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 29-cent stamp in memory of Jan Ernst Matzeliger. It was an honor he richly deserved.

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Why Limited Government? →

January 31, 2021

Keep government small and keep your eye on it because it will grab whatever power it can get its hands on at your expense.

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Big Brother's COVID Failures →

January 26, 2021

A retired government school teacher in my town, at the start of the pandemic, declared capitalism to be unable to handle a crisis. Here’s my response.

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New Zealand's 40 Years of Free Market Success →

January 21, 2021

What’s the big-picture lesson here? Montesquieu, the French Enlightenment thinker, summed it up in 1748: “Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.”

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Wisdom from Silent Cal's Inaugural Address →

January 20, 2021

Long before the Austrian economist F. A. Hayek noted that “The more the State plans, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual,” Coolidge knew it in his gut.

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Black, Blind and Brilliant →

January 19, 2021

So many black, blind and brilliant musicians grace our history that it’s difficult to fit them in a single list.

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Lessons About Money from the Georgia Gold Rush →

January 16, 2021

The notion that only government can “make money” is not only historically inaccurate, it’s also downright silly.

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In Praise of the Uncommon

January 15, 2021

I have no interest in homogenizing people in a socialist or egalitarian blender. Commonism is just one letter away from communism, a deadly poison.

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Tudor the Ice King →

January 14, 2021

Without men and women willing to dream and take risks, life for the masses would surely still be—in the words of Thomas Hobbes—nasty, brutish and short, just as it was for centuries until capitalism gave the entrepreneur a chance to succeed.

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Great Moments in Civil Disobedience →

January 8, 2021

If the choice is obedience or conscience, I try my best to pick conscience.

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Politicians vs Statesmen: A World of Difference

December 28, 2020

Smart people are skeptical of the expansion of government power, because they know history, economics and human nature. They don’t allow such politicians to buy them off with other people’s money.

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The Religious Magna Carta →

December 27, 2020

The uncommonly courageous few will rise far sooner than the timid multitudes, and it is to them that all of us who love freedom owe special gratitude.

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The Lunacy of Socialism's Hostility to Private Property

December 21, 2020

A violent enemy of private property now wastes his last days in a small corner of public property. What a Marxist moron! Oops, sorry, that’s redundant.

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Great Fires of History Aren't the Only Super-Spreaders →

December 17, 2020

We can certainly understand why New Yorkers right about now might appreciate something Henry David Thoreau once said: “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”

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Steve Forbes Interviews Me on "Was Jesus a Socialist?" →

December 11, 2020

One of my favorite people and a personal friend, Steve Forbes, interviews me on Jesus and economics.

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Wilson and the Hutterites: An Unforgiveable Tragedy →

December 10, 2020

While your “progressive” history professor was telling you how idealistic, reform-minded, forward-thinking and “for the people” Woodrow Wilson supposedly was, did he or she tell you about the courageous Hutterites who stood up to his heavy-handedness?

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Words & Numbers: "The Adventures of Larry Reed," December 2020 →

December 9, 2020

Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan celebrate the 200th episode of their FEE program, “Words & Numbers”, and I was very proud to be a part of the special occasion.

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Jefferson on Debt: He Warned Us!

December 7, 2020

In the eight years of his presidency (1801-1809), did he practice what he preached? To a remarkable extent, yes he did.

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Freedom's Future →

December 7, 2020

Sebastian Stodolak of the Warsaw Enterprise Institute interviews me (November 2020) on my 1986 visit with the Polish anti-communist underground, Robert Higgs’ “ratchet effect”, the future of freedom and other topics.

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The Steadfast Scholar →

December 4, 2020

Pursuing truth for its own sake and mustering the courage to speak it without equivocation should be the loftiest of objectives in any profession. They fit the life and career of Walter Williams perfectly.

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Recent “Best of Web”

Featured
The End of the Climate Cult
Dec 4, 2025
The End of the Climate Cult
Dec 4, 2025

The climatastrophe has been a terrible mistake. It diverted attention from real environmental problems, cost a fortune, impoverished consumers, perpetuated poverty, frightened young people into infertility, wasted years of our time, undermined democracy and corrupted science. Time to bury the parrot — Matt Ridley.


Dec 4, 2025
Government Shutdown Exposed the Biggest Lie in Education
Oct 31, 2025
Government Shutdown Exposed the Biggest Lie in Education
Oct 31, 2025

“For decades, teachers unions and the liberal allies they bankroll in D.C. have told the American people that without the federal bureaucracy, education would crumble,” writes Ryan Walters.

Oct 31, 2025
Millions Gather to Express Total Ignorance
Oct 18, 2025
Millions Gather to Express Total Ignorance
Oct 18, 2025

“We're going to join our voices together and let the message ring loud and clear that we are uneducated rubes in desperate need of a middle-school social studies class,” said one man. Problem is, they DID have middle-school social studies, at great expense to the taxpayer, and still turned out to be rubes. Maybe there’s a connection??

Oct 18, 2025

Recent Quotes

Featured
Murphy on America
Feb 11, 2025
Murphy on America
Feb 11, 2025

“The true meaning of America, you ask? It’s in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman’s badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper. ... In all these things, and many more, you’ll find America. In all these things, you’ll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me” — Actor, poet, and the most decorated American of World War II, Audie Murphy.

Feb 11, 2025
Mill on Freedom
Feb 1, 2025
Mill on Freedom
Feb 1, 2025

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”

Feb 1, 2025
Best-Selling Japanese Novelist Eiji Yoshikawa on Do-Gooders
Mar 20, 2023
Best-Selling Japanese Novelist Eiji Yoshikawa on Do-Gooders
Mar 20, 2023

“There’s nothing more frightening than a half-baked do-gooder who knows nothing of the world but takes it upon himself to tell the world what’s good for it — from his book, Musashi.

Mar 20, 2023

Recent Blogs

Featured
The Constitution of Liberty: Hayek's Lessons for Today and Tomorrow
Dec 4, 2025
The Constitution of Liberty: Hayek's Lessons for Today and Tomorrow
Dec 4, 2025

Hayek firmly rejected the modern leftist obsession with “social justice.” Redistribution schemes based on outcome-focused equality ignore the process by which outcomes arise. Inequality, per se, is not a problem. The focus should not be on the outcome, but on the process. Photo: Hayek (left) and Mises (right).

Dec 4, 2025
Grateful Thanks to the Founding Generation
Dec 3, 2025
Grateful Thanks to the Founding Generation
Dec 3, 2025

I wish I could go back in a time machine to that emotional moment at Fraunces Tavern on December 4, 1783.

Dec 3, 2025
Socialists Blame Capitalism for Everything, Especially When a Disaster is the Fault of Socialism
Dec 3, 2025
Socialists Blame Capitalism for Everything, Especially When a Disaster is the Fault of Socialism
Dec 3, 2025

The idea that politicians are supposed to provide solutions to problems is usually stupid, because politicians are not magicians. They can't do things any better than people who actually create wealth. They don't create wealth, they just redistribute it. We shouldn't think of the state as a very generous uncle who only thinks about us. A very good English translation of an interview with Kristina Votrubova in the publication Postroj. Conducted November 27, 2025.

Dec 3, 2025