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Lawrence W. Reed

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UN.jpg

The Poverty of the United Nations →

January 1, 1999

The fact is that Americans consume more because Americans produce more. 

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What is "Urban Sprawl"? →

October 1, 1998

Depicting sprawl as a “monster” or a “plague on the land” may capture headlines, but it doesn’t inform.

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Trust Not in What the Government Can Do For You →

June 1, 1998

What’s lamentable here is that some of our politicians lie, cheat, and steal. It is not lamentable that Americans lose faith in them when they do those things. It is laudable, because it is common sense being appropriately applied.

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Comment

Hayek was Right: The Worst Get to the Top →

February 1, 1998

The docile and gullible will accept a ready-made system of values, even a rotten one.

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Food for Thought and Double Standards →

January 1, 1998

Winning the war of ideas requires that we not let the other side get away with judging free markets against perfection while they judge their own deficient prescriptions against mere good intentions.

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Comment

Educating Those With Special Needs →

November 1, 1997

The private sector, including private sectarian schools, religious schools, nonpublic agencies, and homeschools, offers a wide variety of education programs for this difficult-to-educate population.

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The Predatory Price-Cutting Bogeyman →

July 1, 1997

Anti-capitalist literature is rife with demons, monsters, and other assorted bogeymen, but so are fairy tales.

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Comment
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Making the Case for Liberty Stick →

December 1, 1996

Too many battles are lost to statists because of a misplaced and hard-to-shake faith in government itself. For all its endless failures, now more widely perceived than at any time in decades, government is still regarded as real and tangible while free-market alternatives are often thought of as nebulous and imaginary.

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Comment

A Vote for Optimism →

April 1, 1996

Historians record that on the eve of the last millennium, around the year 999, the world was rife with dire predictions about the future.

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Block Grants Are Not The Answer →

July 1, 1995

We ought to be raising more fundamental questions with regard to everything the federal government does: Is this a legitimate function of any government? Why should this activity be coercively funded at all?

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Destruction is Not an Economic Blessing →

June 1, 1995

People helping people is a good thing. Wanton destruction of things of value is not. Simple truths, but some people don’t yet seem to fully comprehend them.

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Comment

Comparable Worth or Incomparably Worthless? →

April 1, 1995

Employers and employees can always produce “experts” who will rank jobs differently than any arbitrary formula, which is why imposing comparable worth would produce a playground for lawyers and a bottomless pit of costly litigation.

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Government Schools: Dissatisfaction Guaranteed and No Money Back →

February 1, 1995

In free markets where individual choice prevails, conflict is minimized. You get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. If you don’t like the wares in one store, there’s no need to throw up a picket line. You don’t have to attend lengthy and boring meetings and be talked down to by public “servants.”

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Comment
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Peking Duck or Kentucky Fried? →

December 1, 1988

Mao slaughtered millions for a stupid, evil cause but today, we can celebrate that he’s gone and KFC has been open in Beijing for more than three decades!

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Toward Radical Monetary Reform →

April 1, 1982

Once it was believed that witches, warlocks, and demons were the causes of such calamities as bad weather. Elaborate contrivances were devised to drive them away. When men learned that it wasn’t so, they looked for more natural, scientific explanations. 

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Seven Fallacies of Economics →

April 1, 1981

I for one am convinced that good economics is more than possible. It is imperative, and achieving it begins with the knowledge of what bad economics is all about.

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Comment

Witch-Hunting for Robber Barons: The Standard Oil Story →

March 1, 1980

Does the story of Standard Oil really present a case against the free market? No.

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What Price Control Really Means →

April 1, 1978

Two centuries after Adam Smith penned his eloquent defense of the right to be free from coercion, coercion is again in the ascendancy. It is seen by many as the “quick fix,” the answer to chronic problems, a panacea that will bring order out of chaos. In 1795, James Madison described this phenomenon as “the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in government.”

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Comment

Is There an Unfavorable Balance of Trade? →

July 1, 1977

It ought to be obvious that trade is a two-way street. In a free mar­ket, where trade is a voluntary, de­sired, and spontaneous feature of human action, there is a "perfect balance."

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A Critique of Mathematical Economics →

April 1, 1977

No wonder economics is labeled "the dismal science," one hundred years after Thomas Carlyle coined the phrase. Under the spell of mathematics, it has been reduced to cold, hard statistics. Acting man somehow has been left out of the picture, replaced by lifeless graphs and equations.

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Recent “Best of Web”

Featured
Berenson Wins Big and the Left-Wing Legacy Media Doesn't Tell You
May 14, 2026
Berenson Wins Big and the Left-Wing Legacy Media Doesn't Tell You
May 14, 2026

The journalist just won a huge victory for free speech. Why hasn’t the mainstream media noticed?

May 14, 2026
The Fading of a Hoax
May 10, 2026
The Fading of a Hoax
May 10, 2026

Now, finally, after 50 years of hysteria, The New York Times, the very Grey Lady with her hair on fire over climate change this whole time, tells us it's not such a big deal after all? — David Marcus.

May 10, 2026
Capitalists Have Already Solved the Grocery Store Problem
April 18, 2026
Capitalists Have Already Solved the Grocery Store Problem
April 18, 2026

Comrade Morondami Wants to Play Grocery Store.

April 18, 2026

Recent Quotes

Featured
Murphy on America
February 11, 2025
Murphy on America
February 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.

February 11, 2025
Mill on Freedom
February 1, 2025
Mill on Freedom
February 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.”

February 1, 2025
Best-Selling Japanese Novelist Eiji Yoshikawa on Do-Gooders
March 20, 2023
Best-Selling Japanese Novelist Eiji Yoshikawa on Do-Gooders
March 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.

March 20, 2023

Recent Blogs

Featured
Real Heroes of the American Revolution
May 15, 2026
Real Heroes of the American Revolution
May 15, 2026

Based on my forthcoming book, Born of Ideas: How Principles, Faith, and Courage Forged America (available for pre-order at https://tinyurl.com/5hbpujuj), this lecture was delivered at my alma mater, Grove City College, on April 16, 2026.

May 15, 2026
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!
May 15, 2026
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!
May 15, 2026

From the Amazon description: In a world where revolutions often replace one form of tyranny with another, the American Revolution stands apart. Why? In Born of Ideas, Lawrence W. Reed reveals that America’s founding was not merely the result of war, but of a profound transformation in thought―an extraordinary revolution of ideas rooted in liberty, personal responsibility, faith, and moral courage. Through engaging, accessible essays, Reed introduces readers to both well-known figures and unsung heroes whose convictions shaped a nation. From the Mayflower Compact to the struggles of the Revolutionary era, each chapter illuminates the principles that made America unique―and that remain essential today. Order here: https://tinyurl.com/3vwxznxz

May 15, 2026
A Robber Baron Who Never Robbed
May 13, 2026
A Robber Baron Who Never Robbed
May 13, 2026

Your teachers and professors undoubtedly taught you “something,” true or not, about the so-called robber barons. Did they ever mention this one?

May 13, 2026