Bob Murphy

Author Archive

A Black Libertarian Reflects on Obama’s Win

Over at TAE, Dan D’Amico is telling the old fogeys that race isn’t important to the young kids these days. In response, Steve Horwitz pointed out this blog post by a black libertarian. I think it’s probably a good sign that young people like Dan (and me) don’t see what the big deal is, because […]

Practical (Yet Still Free) Advice

Lest my readers feel that they get nothing but hard-hitting analysis suitable for abstruse thought experiments, let me share a very useful tip gleaned from actual experience: In your work environment–whether a home office or in a skyscraper–if you use an electric kettle, and the printer cable becomes draped across the little switch that pops […]

Naomi Wolf Stands Corrected

I don’t really have that much to say about the Obama win; it was what most people were expecting. I’m glad that at least Obama’s economic policies will be labeled “Marxist” rather than John McCain’s Obama-lite policies which would have been touted as “market-oriented.” At least now, if and when we get ration cards for […]

George Carlin on Not Voting

Scott, in the comments at MR, posted a link to this Carlin clip. I don’t actually endorse everything Carlin says here; for example, he thinks awful politicians prove how awful Americans are in general, when I would say it rather proves how awful democratic institutions are. But in any event, it’s always fun to hear […]

Why I Don’t Vote

Today it’s appropriate for me to summarize my reasons for not voting. To put it in a nutshell, democracy is a repugnant and ridiculous system, and so I have no ethical duty to vote. And then, my vote by itself will almost certainly have no effect on the election, and hence I have no pragmatic […]

Peace Candidate Obama Calls for Civilian National Security Force "Just as Powerful" as Conventional Military

HT2EPJ. I don’t know the context of these remarks, but does it even matter? When someone calls for a “civilian national security force” that is “just as strong, just as powerful, just as well-funded” as the military, I think that should give people pause before making this guy the most powerful person in world history.

Gordon Tullock on Not Voting

Here is a short PBS video featuring Gordon Tullock and the typical game theory critique of mass voter turnout; HT2MR. (Incidentally, for my “third year paper” at NYU I came up with a way to get arbitrarily large voter turnout–where each voter only cared about the outcome–so long as certain conditions were satisfied in the […]

Obama Says He Wants (Dirty) Coal Power Plants to Go Bankrupt

I am sorry for the obviously partisan YouTube; I couldn’t find a neutral one that had the money quote as succinctly as this version. I don’t know whether to find his frankness refreshing or scary. In other words, is he at least telling us exactly how he will kick the economy, or are his plans […]