Independent Institute

Kristian Fors, Research Fellow and Director of the California Golden Fleece® Awards, explored the LA Metro System to understand its characteristics and whether or not it is an efficient use of taxpayer funding. The LA Metro System has been awarded the dishonor of the Golden Fleece® Awards.

The Independent Institute’s latest California Golden Fleece® Award exposes how the Los Angeles Metro has become a dangerous, costly, and inefficient transit system. Billions have been wasted on unnecessary rail expansions while crime surges and service reliability plummets. Read the full report to see how smarter, bus-based solutions could save taxpayers money and make LA’s transit safer for everyone. https://shorturl.at/YCyvL

Economic turmoil demands answers. Judy Shelton’s book, Good as Gold, delivers a clear, courageous case for sound money, price stability, and a gold-linked international vision that lifts people, not just elites. Now available in paperback ➡️ https://buff.ly/20cq2DQ

This promises to be an inspiring conversation—solutions that work and that everyone can be a part of: https://lnkd.in/eEVdhEYT

Last week, Kristian Fors spoke at the annual conference for PacWest Alliance Insurance Services that was held in Monterey, California. He discussed, once again, how California’s regulations have devastated the state’s homeowners’ insurance market. Read Kristian's entire report on this topic: https://lnkd.in/gym4haG3

America spends more on its military than the next nine nations combined, yet our security is weaker, our liberties are eroding, and our debt is exploding. In A Balance of Titans: Peace and Liberty in the New Multipolar World, Ivan Eland exposes how endless wars and bloated defense budgets endanger America’s future and lays out a bold path toward security without empire. Order your copy here: https://buff.ly/k6UmXvs

Despite billions spent, homelessness continues to rise. “Housing First” and other policies have failed to address addiction, mental health, and systemic barriers. Beyond Homeless offers a hard look at the crisis and points to real, proven solutions that can help people rebuild their lives. Now available for pre-order: https://buff.ly/25meVl4

Celebrating 30 years of The Independent Review. The fall 2025 issue of The Independent Review is out now! Fifty years ago, James Buchanan’s Samaritan’s Dilemma explained how aid can unintentionally encourage dependency. Our new symposium revisits this landmark essay, highlighting its relevance for today’s debates on welfare, charity, and institutions. A timely reminder of the need for responsibility and strategic courage in public policy. Get your copy here: https://buff.ly/nyztEQI

What a timely topic – Karl Marx – 35 years after the fall of the Soviet empire. In this episode of Beyond Economics and Back, I sat down with Phil Magness, economic historian and Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute in California, whose recent book The Best of Karl Marx asks this very question. We explored why Marx keeps returning—and why his theory was outdated from the very beginning. Here are some highlights you can jump to: 2:10 – Why Marx was obscure and unpopular in his own time - until the Bolshevik Revolution elevated him into a global prophet. Why Marx Is “Back” Despite 20th-Century Failures. 4:50 – How the labor theory of value collapses under the marginalist revolution – and with it the whole idea of exploitation. Keynes on Capital + The Marginal Revolution vs. Labor Value. 10:09 Refutations & Everyday Logic: From Wicksteed/Marshall to Subjective Value 16:00 Inside Capital: The “Transformation Problem” and Lenin’s Canonization. 19:50 – Why the real conflict is between liberty and tyranny and not between labor and capital. Exporting Marxism: Soviet Publishing, Propaganda, and Academia. 29:40 – Scarcity, Incentives, and the Robot/Leisure Debate. Why people believe scarcity can be abolished by decree even though it acts as the engine of human progress. 39:50 – What happens when a society ignores scarcity — from Soviet dairies to endless queues, black markets, and falsified statistics In a captivating story, Phil revealed that Karl Marx was not a giant of 19th-century thought, but an obscure exile in London, hardly noticed until Lenin turned him into a prophet. It was the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 — not Marx’s own relevance — that elevated him. Yet his theory was outdated from the start. Just years after Das Kapital, it was proved that value is not created by hours of labor but rather by human creativity and free choice in exchange. And still, utopian promises resurface. Whether in the old slogans of socialism or in today’s universal basic income, the illusion is the same: that scarcity can be abolished by decree. But scarcity is not a flaw — it is what drives us to create and cooperate. To ignore it is to return to shortages, black markets, and the abolition of human dignity. Phil warned that we are at risk of losing the historical memory of the 20th century and all of its lessons. Thirty-five years after the fall of the Soviet empire, the same old illusions return in new forms. And here lies the real fault line: the conflict is not just between capitalism and communism — it is between liberty and tyranny. Communism cannot survive without tyranny. And capitalism cannot survive without liberty. Sitting in a place once marked by central planning, now buzzing with free exchange, we could feel that truth. History had turned full circle — from Marx’s illusions back to reality. The link to #BeyondEconomics and Back is in the comments. Enjoy! Thank you, Danske Bank Lietuvoje, Tomas Gorbačas, Greta Sakalauskienė.