Articles by Robert Higgs

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Tolstoy’s Remarkable Manifesto on Christian Anarchy and Pacifism
Robert Higgs – The Beacon, 5 May 2014

Tolstoy is one of the most important Christian anarchists in history, yet his views on Christianity were anything but typical. For him, Christianity was above all a commitment to love others as one’s self and to abstain from the use of force and violence, even in resistance to evil or in self-defense. Thus, as a Christian anarchist, he comes close to occupying a class of his own.

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Freedom Is Not Compatible with Government’s Initiation of Force against Innocent People
Robert Higgs – The Independent Institute, 31 Jan 2011

In yesterday’s [25 Jan 2011] New York Times appears an op-ed article by Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard. Glaeser’s article is remarkable because arguments in favor of freedom, insisting that economic analysis implicitly rests on a moral presumption that individual freedom has fundamental value, do not appear every day—or every month—in “the newspaper of record.” So, I am glad to give two cheers to Glaeser, one for his theme and another for his courage in placing the argument in such a hostile outlet.
I cannot give Glaeser a third cheer, however, because toward the end of the article he inserts a concession that I find wholly inconsistent with the rest of the argument.

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