Liberty Matters

The OLL brings people together to debate and discuss important texts and big ideas about liberty.

Contrasting Views of Liberty in Hume and Rousseau (November 2024)

By: OLL Editor

David Hume’s skepticism and rigorous empiricism confront Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idealism and passionate romanticism in this series about their perspectives on liberty. Hume and Rousseau were two of the most notorious and influential thinkers of their time. They were also very briefly friends. 
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Oakeshott and Liberal Education (October 2024)

By: OLL Editor

Michael Oakeshott was an English political theorist and philosopher who is admired by many conservatives and classical liberals. In this Liberty Matters series, Elizabeth Corey relates Oakeshott's ideal categories of civil and…
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Classical Liberals on Race (August/September 2024)

By: OLL Editor

Many classical liberals have been silent or passive when it comes to racism’s pernicious effects. Others have twisted or misunderstood classical liberalism to justify racist words and deeds.
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The Rebirth of the Austrian School and the South Royalton Conference: Marking the Fifty-Year Anniversary (June 2024)

By: Richard Ebeling

The first Austrian Economics conference was held fifty years ago in 1974 in South Royalton, Vermont. In this Liberty Matters online discussion the authors share their recollections, thoughts on the fifty years since, and their hopes…
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Harriet Taylor Mill on Marriage and Divorce (March/April 2024)

By: Giandomenica Becchio

In this Liberty Matters online discussion we assess the ideas of Harriet Taylor Mill and her partnership with John Stuart Mill. The authors often draw on Taylor Mill and Mill’s correspondence, edited by Friedrich von Hayek in 1951.…
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Systemic Racism in Crime and Housing (February/March 2024)

By: Ramon P. DeGennaro

A previous set of essays explored systemic racism as a potential cause of racial disparities in education and healthcare. This set focuses on similar disparities in housing and crime.
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Liberty and Civic Education (November/December 2023)

By: David Davenport

What is civic education, and why does it matter? Further, what constitutes civic education, and whose task should it be to ensure a nation's citizens are civically literate? These are the questions this edition of Liberty Matters…
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Why We Don’t Need a “New” History of Capitalism (October 2023)

By: Phillip W. Magness

Was a single industry – cotton – the primary driver of American economic development in the 19th century, and thus the basis of wealth today? This is the claim behind what have become known as the "New Histories of Capitalism." While…
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Did the American Colonies Pay Too High a Cost for Revolution? (August/September 2023)

By: Vincent Geloso and Antoine Noël

If one leaves out petro-nations (e.g., Qatar, United Arab Emirates) and fiscal havens (e.g., Bermuda) from international rankings of income per person, one will find the United States at or near the top of the list (depending on the…
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Adam Smith’s Emergent Rules of Justice (June/July 2023)

By: Vernon L. Smith

June 2023 marks the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith's birth. Celebrations of this tercentenary abound, notably at our sister site, AdamSmithWorks. Most often known as the father or modern economics, OLL readers know that Smith's…
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The Roman Senate in Early Modern Europe (May 2023)

By: Paulina Kewes

The rise and fall of the Roman republic continued to influence political thought for centuries after its demise. In this Liberty Matters, we invited a group of scholars, led by Paulina Kewes, to consider the influence of this history…
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Did we have a Constitutional Revolution but not reconstruct the South? (April 2023)

By: Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Orville Vernon Burton, Nicole Etcheson, and Erec Smith

Revolution (n) "a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system."
How many constitutional revolutions has America experienced? Certainly all agree on the first. Was there another constitutional…
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Why Do We Need Feminist Economics? (March 2023)

By: Giandomenica Becchio, Mikayla Novak, Arnold Kling, and Jayme Lemke

What is feminist economics? Is it a complement or subsitute for standard economic analysis? Regardless, why do we need it today? These are the questions that animate this Liberty Matters symposium. Led by Professor Giandomenica…
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Richard Ebeling

Richard Ebeling

Giandomenica Becchio

Giandomenica Becchio