In memoriam to Tibor R. Machan -- a man of great ideas, integrity & purpose.

Free To Choose Media extends its condolences to the family of Tibor R. Machan. We produced a one-hour documentary about Karl Marx, which Tibor hosted 29 years ago. We are posting a link to the program and invite all to enjoy it and reflect on Tibor’s work.

Watch the program here: http://freetochoose.tv/icvideos.php

Dead Wrong with Johan Norberg - Sweatshops (Video)

The clothes we wear condemn millions to a life of working in a sweatshop in countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh. It’s embarrassing that we walk around in fancy clothes made by poor people who work long hours for little money. We should all be ashamed, shouldn’t we?

Tomorrow India Kicks Off its Make In India Week...

Tomorrow India kicks off its Make In India Week (February 13th - 18th). India's economy is growing at a rapid pace! We recognize India's resurgence, and our film India Awakes shows how Indians are moving ahead. If you haven't seen the film yet, be sure to check it out here.

#MakeInIndia 

From the Founder: Seeing is Believing from Bob Chitester

Seeing is believing. 

Scenes of polar bears on melting ice floes. Beggars on the street--a church’s soup kitchen closed because of government regulations. An interior designer is put out of business for lack of a state-issued license. She has few options left to her. 

For most people these slice-of-life vignettes are more persuasive than mounds of data. Image and story are more likely to change beliefs and prompt individuals to act. 

And when you get down to it, it’s the individual who acts: Why do we think as we do? Why do we do what we do? 

Notice I did not ask about our education, our genetic makeup, our social environment, our ethnic or religious affiliations, our psychological makeup, or our philosophical starting points. Doing so may advance scholarship, but asking these questions will not directly engage the millions of citizens whose votes shape our collective destiny, for better or worse. 

That is not to say only a few of us are smart enough to understand why limiting government is desirable. It’s just too few citizens think it’s worth the effort. 

Give people the freedom--to make their own decisions, to decide what makes them happy and to take action toward that goal and they don’t much care whether Caesar Augustus or Cicero and the Senate rule the land. But whoever rules, there will be only a smidgen of difference in outcome unless a majority of citizens keep the autocrat or the legislature in check by somehow limiting the size and scope of government as necessary for human freedom to prevail. 

Why we do what we do - is to improve our well-being and achieve the satisfaction of taking care of ourselves. We want to be happy. Charles Murray and Arthur Brooks have been prominent among those testing the thesis of what Arthur describes as "earned success." Both are contributing to one our upcoming video projects, Work and Happiness: The Human Cost of Welfare, which parallels a soon-to-be released book by Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers. A public TV program and teaching units will be available in the Spring of 2016.

Our instincts and observations of others lead to the conclusion people would rather work for a living, but if things go bad, the majority expect Augustus or Cicero and the Senate to bail them out. And once bailed out, they want the government to get out of the way so they can give it another try own their own. And we should all accept the sincerity of that notion.

Cicero and the Senate and Augustus were practitioners of public choice theory, give the folks what they want and we can continue to enjoy the trappings of power. But failure to support Senators who resisted the centralization of power led to Augustus' empire and centuries of worsening imperial repression of personal and economic freedom.

Sound familiar? The burden is on those of us who do think it is worth the effort, to understand the acceptable limits of government and to communicate the winning ideas of freedom in the manner the average person can easily grasp and remember when making a decision regarding the extend of Caesar's role in their lives.

How The World Advances...Through Energy Around The World is airing in New York on January 31st at 2:00 PM.

New York Residents, make sure you tune into station WABC-ABC, this Sunday at 2:00 PM, for the airing of How The World Advances...Through Energy Around The World with host Johan Norberg.

This episode will take you from a solar facility in Morocco to wind farms in Denmark, from a hydraulic fracturing site in Pennsylvania to a trucking company in Florida that is converting its fleet into natural gas, viewers will explore how innovators from around the world are finding new, creative & cost-effective solutions to our planet's growing energy needs.

Station: WABC-ABC

Date: Sunday, January 31st

Time: 2:00 PM, EST.

Adam Smith on the High Seas by Barbara Potter

I wake up at 3:20 a.m. and I don’t remember where I am. It’s pitch dark and I hear a steady hum somewhere far below my room. As I reach for my iPhone, it comes back to me:  I’m in a ten-by-twelve foot cabin on the F Deck of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, the largest container ship in the world. We’re at dock. 

There’s no telephone, no television, and no wifi, only an orange glow visible through the window. It’s night one of a four-night voyage from Algeciras, Spain to Rotterdam, and our video crew is onboard to get a behind-the-scenes look at the operations of this mammoth ship.

We’re filming for the second hour of our two-part program about Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish economist and author of The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

In the first hour we profile Smith’s life, following his footsteps from his birthplace in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, around Europe and back to Edinburgh, to discover how he developed his groundbreaking ideas. In the second hour, we go inside four well-known companies through which we can demonstrate his ideas in action today. Mærsk Line, the world’s largest overseas cargo carrier, represents global trade, which Smith predicted would result in increased prosperity for all its participants. 

The Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller is the first of Mærsk Line’s Triple E container ships, and has the largest capacity of any ship at sea. It measures 400 meters in length (the Eiffel Tower is 324 meters long) and carries more than 18,000 containers, filled with everything from computer parts to bananas. The containers are stacked 18 tall with fewer than 50 percent of them visible above the deck when the ship is loaded.

We have been invited to join the ship for four days near the end of its route from Asia to Europe. On a beautiful October evening, we board. The ship docks in southern Spain for a few hours to unload cargo at the huge port facility in Algeciras. It had started in Shanghai 20 days earlier. We bring everything to the dock, where a large rope bag is lowered down to us by a tall crane; we stuff it full of our seven equipment cases and three small suitcases. Hoisting our backpacks and computer bags on our shoulders, the three of us carefully climb up several levels to meet our equipment on the main deck. 

The crew accommodations are located in the tower, about a third of the way back from the bow of the ship. That tower stands seven or eight stories above deck and contains the large bridge (where all the controls and electronics are), cabins for the 22 crew, a large galley, two small dining rooms, common rooms, a small library and a few offices. There’s an elevator within the tower but I find that when the ship is at sea and rocking, the elevator lurches back and forth and it is more comfortable to climb the stairs. 

Soon after we board, we are given a safety briefing by Per Shilling, the chief engineer. We receive an introduction to the layout of the ship, the location and use of lifeboats and life preservers, complete with a strict warning not to fall overboard.

Afterwards, we meet in the small officer’s dining room for dinner. We sit at a table with the captain, the chief engineer and a couple of other men who work with the captain on the bridge. We are warned to be prompt for the three meals each day because that’s when and where the men gather to discuss the day’s work. During their shifts, they’re far apart from each other as they tend to their tasks around the ship. 

The captain of this giant blue vessel, Jes Meinertz, is a Dane whose entire career has been spent with Mærsk. He works for 12 weeks in a row and then has 12 weeks off and claims he loves it. He runs the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller from Asia to Europe and back again. The boat never docks in the US because there is no US facility large enough to accommodate the ship. He was very friendly and welcomed us to explore and shoot wherever we want to. We tell him that we will interview him and other crew members to learn about their jobs and what challenges they face.

We spend the night in simple but very functional cabins equipped with a bed, desk and bathroom. That first morning we rise well before dawn and set up our equipment on the bridge to watch the moon set and the sun rise as we sail out of Algeciras and through the Straits of Gibraltar, headed back out to sea. What a beautiful sight.

Over the next days we will shoot the ship from bow to stern, from the top of the bridge to the depths of the bilge. We will go deep into the engine room and film the two massive engines, which stand three stories tall and operate so efficiently that they move cargo at a fraction of the cost of trucks or railroad. 

We will follow crew members as they tighten the braces which secure the containers and learn about the increasing number of containers that are equipped with climate control and plugged into the ship’s power. We will even follow the cook as he prepares meals, with the unique challenge of pleasing the palates of a multi-ethnic crew. It will prove to be a fascinating week and when we dock in Rotterdam we will disembark with more than enough footage to tell our story. Adam Smith probably wouldn’t be surprised that, as he predicted, global trade has propelled unprecedented numbers of people out of poverty, but he might be shocked by the immense scale of the ships which carry that trade. 

30% Off Everything in the Store!!!

The entire Free To Choose Store is on sale!

This sale has expired, but check back another time to see if we have more specials.

Which means you can purchase India Awakes or The Original Free To Choose 1980 series for 30% off!!

With great good humor, Milton Friedman often framed his economic advice in ways that everyone could understand. This centennial collection of twelve newly mastered DVDs comprises a unique tribute to the “Winning Ideas of Milton and Rose Friedman;” “Winning” because they have and continue to withstand the test of time. The Economist called him, “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20 century,” but Milton and Rose referred to themselves simply as, “Two Lucky People.” This collection contains many memories of the life they lived together, and the powerful ideas that resulted from that relationship.

The 12 discs in this collection run the gamut from stories about Milton and Rose by people who knew them best to Milton's almost prescient thoughts in disc 11 where he explains that democracies always self-destruct when government actions physically and morally bankrupt a nation.

Don't miss this opportunity to own this remarkable collection.

This entire 12 disc set is only $34.97!

Hurry this store wide sale only lasts until January 5th!!

Click here to see all our products!