Editor of Intellectual History @libertarianism in the @CatoInstitute. Host of @PortraitsPod a podcast about libertarian history. Irish living in DC

District of Columbia, USA
Joined August 2018
Government benefits are never free. When politicians promise help to one group, someone else pays the bill. In William Graham Sumner’s famous example, A and B decide to help X—but they make C pay. Politics focuses on who gets the benefit. Sumner reminds us to ask: Who pays for it? Learn more from Cato’s @PaulMeany2: ow.ly/XjM550ZBCE4
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Every government benefit has a recipient, but it also has a payer. Politics encourages us to focus on the first and forget the second. In 1883, sociologist and political economist William Graham Sumner called that payer the Forgotten Man. Cato's @PaulMeany2 explains why his insight is as relevant as ever: ow.ly/v7hO50ZBCwK
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Wealth redistribution doesn't just move money. It moves power from individuals to the state, giving politicians greater control over who pays, who receives, and how resources are used. The question is, how much power should the state wield? says Cato’s @PaulMeany2. Learn more: ow.ly/gZuL50ZBCTr
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Paul Meany retweeted
🚨Event Alert!!🚨 Join leading scholars, historians, and policymakers on September 24 to explore how American financial markets became the envy of the world, fueled prosperity, and Washington's role in sustaining them. Register here cato.org/events/money-market…
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Paul Meany retweeted
incredibly happy to report I'm joining @sci_works! @Lyan82 and @ersatzben have put together a great team of people who care deeply about accelerating progress in British science and tech, while building the institutions needed to make it all happen very bullish on it 🥳💙
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Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" mirrors today's anxieties—AI, space colonization, fertility, distant control. Cato’s @PaulMeany2 argues its real insight is that these are old fears in new clothes, echoing the politics of the American Revolution. Full essay: ow.ly/QfU950Zn1Ii
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For the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Lilah Kimble reflects on the American Founders’ courage to risk their lives for their commitment to liberty. She asks if, even in less significant moments, we have the courage to protect our principles and live in accordance with our beliefs. Read the new essay here: libertarianism.org/articles/…
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Libertarianism begins and ends with self-ownership. Today we remember what it costs to secure it.
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Liberalism is not exclusively Western. One of its Muslim advocates was the great Ottoman intellectual Namık Kemal, whose passion for “hürriyet,” or liberty, led to constitutionalism. I talked about his life and legacy with @PaulMeany2 at @libertarianism: libertarianism.org/podcasts/…
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LIVE TODAY AT 3PM ET: “Black Liberation through the Marketplace: Hope, Heartbreak, and the Promise of America,” with @LibertyEthics, @MarcusWitcher, @AmeshiaCross and @PaulMeany2. WATCH: bit.ly/3xwar5h Join the conversation using #CatoEvents
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Portraits of Liberty is back! Our first episode in a while covers the life of Itagaki Taisuke, the samurai who became the leader of the Japanese Freedom and People's Rights Movement. libertarianism.org/podcasts/…
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Worried about tech monopolies? So was Forbes, 14 years ago today.
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Hundreds of years before modern economics, Ibn Khaldun already saw the relationship between taxation, economic growth, and incentives. youtube.com/watch?v=c_3sftkZ…
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"The budding American Revolutionaries considered Cicero an authoritative figure on the concepts of mixed governments and natural law, core concepts of the new American system of government." - @PaulMeany2 bit.ly/3C9F6VS
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Paul Meany retweeted
There is a free market tradition in the Muslim world, says @AkyolinEnglish, citing Prophet Mohammed creating a market in which he said the would be no taxes—but when people asked for price caps, he said no, prices could only be set by God. buff.ly/3G6PYXd
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"[John] Adams may have been America’s greatest admirer of Cicero, saying, 'As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same character, his authority should have great weight.' " - @PaulMeany2 bit.ly/3FD7F09
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