Policy

Policy articles provide in-depth analysis of social and public policy, examining their wide-ranging impacts on economics, social life, public health, individual liberty, evidence-based decision-making, and institutional accountability.

We cover critical areas such as healthcare and vaccination policies, pandemic responses and WHO, economic subsidies, national security strategies, withdrawals from international bodies, and pathways to reform that restore freedom, truth, and human dignity over centralized control.

All articles from Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages to support global access, foster international dialogue on governance and reform, and empower readers worldwide to challenge flawed interventions.

The Forgotten Principles of the Risk Assessment

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

These principles can help risk assessments function as intended – as a tool to help individuals and communities evaluate risk and put in place targeted measures, to contain and ultimately reduce anxiety, and to move away from more performative measures that simply serve to entrench anxiety and cause harm, without any benefit.

The Forgotten Principles of the Risk Assessment Continue Reading

Intellectual Courage Is as Essential as it Is Rare

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

We’ve long misconstrued who precisely can be part of the intellectual battle. Everyone without exception can qualify as an intellectual provided he or she is willing to take ideas seriously. Anyone and everyone is entitled to be part of it. Those who feel the burden and the passion of ideas more intensely, in Mises’s view, have a greater obligation to thrust themselves into the battle, even when doing so can bring disdain and isolation from one’s fellows – and doing so most certainly will (which is why so many people who should have known better have fallen silent). 

Intellectual Courage Is as Essential as it Is Rare Continue Reading

Vaccine Mandates and the Pretense of Knowledge

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Similarly, private businesses were in some instances going to shut down altogether, shut down partially, not at all, and many ways in between. What’s important is that varying actions in response to the virus were going to produce voluminous information about how it really spreads, along with the behavior and level of business openness most associated with spread. Human action was going to teach us about the behavior most associated with good health outcomes, while lockdowns based on highly limited information were going to blind us.

Vaccine Mandates and the Pretense of Knowledge Continue Reading

Comedy and Tragedy in Two Americas

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

What this means for people in open states is the dawning of a new consciousness. If they are going to keep their freedoms and good lives, they have to prepare for a new way of thinking. It’s a sense of independence and determination to avoid the hysteria, demands, and attacks from the party in power — and the media apparatus that works all day to bolster them. 

Comedy and Tragedy in Two Americas Continue Reading

Three Tragic Assumptions Behind Lockdown Strategy

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The lesson is that the questions, answers, and solutions are within the capacity of individuals in society to discern and implement. We do not need powerful institutions with legal rights over us to feed them to us, to legislate us, to coerce us.

Three Tragic Assumptions Behind Lockdown Strategy Continue Reading

The Totalitarian Ideology of Lockdownism

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The lockdowns are looking less like a gigantic error and more like the unfolding of a fanatical political ideology and policy experiment that attacks core postulates of civilization at their very root. It’s time we take it seriously and combat it with the same fervor with which a free people resisted all the other evil ideologies that sought to strip humanity of dignity and replace freedom with the terrifying dreams of intellectuals and their government sock puppets. 

The Totalitarian Ideology of Lockdownism Continue Reading

A Closer Look at Germany’s Covid Mortality

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The conclusion is that the Coronavirus has no influence on the mortality of the 50-70 age groups. And that very conclusion is the same for all groups below 80 years of age. As 80 is the average age of death in the population, the general conclusion therefore is that the Coronavirus has no influence on population mortality.

A Closer Look at Germany’s Covid Mortality Continue Reading

A Specious Argument for Mandatory Vaccines

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

In a world in which not every human being lives an isolated existence – that is, in our world – each of us incessantly acts in ways that affect strangers without thereby justifying government-imposed restrictions on the great majority of these actions. Therefore, justification of government obstruction of the ordinary affairs of life requires far more than an identification of the prospect of some interpersonal impact.

A Specious Argument for Mandatory Vaccines Continue Reading

Rich Enough to Escape Lockdowns

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The rich and left wing could do their jobs from the Hamptons. And so they moved there. And so did their art, and other sources of entertainment. Those who personify “limousine liberal” got out of town because they could, supported lockdowns because they could, but does anyone think their reaction would have been at all similar had their own livelihoods and source of dignity been threatened?

Rich Enough to Escape Lockdowns Continue Reading

Join 30,000+ Independent Readers: Get the FREE Brownstone Journal Newsletter