Martin van Staden
http://www.martinvanstaden.com
Martin van Staden is the Head of Policy at the Free Market Foundation and former Deputy Head of Policy Research at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR). Martin also serves as the Editor of the IRR’s History Project and its Race Law Project, and is an advisor to the Free Speech Union SA. He is pursuing a doctorate in law at the University of Pretoria. For more information visit www.martinvanstaden.com.
- Total Post (127)
Articles By This Author
Free trade is low-hanging fruit for the GNU to spur growth
The first 100 days of the Government of National Unity (GNU) have been good for sentiment, but on the whole fruitless for fundamental policy reform.
Reject “Godwin’s law” and learn the lessons of Nazi Germany
Mike Godwin might not have intended it, but his internet adage is being used to nullify warnings that Nazi Germany should teach us to be
These “normal” but out-of-touch rules keep South Africans unsafe
For many decades, South Africa has enjoyed taking rules from relatively safe countries and applying them uncritically to one of the most homicidal and criminal
“Classical” liberalism is, and must be, muscular
In South Africa’s small “classical” liberal community, there are many differences in temperament. Some get very uncomfortable when it is time to go beyond clinical
Private property is inseparable from other “basic” freedoms
Centre-left social democrats walk an unsound, uneasy path of pretending to favour “liberty” while also favouring redistributionary and intensely regulatory initiatives on behalf of the
The DA and BELA: Whose mandate is it anyway?
If Democratic Alliance (DA) ministers begin implementing and enforcing the very policies they campaigned against, it would not be an indication of a healthy coalition
What does “freedom” mean to the left, the right, and the liberals?
In his famous lecture, “Two concepts of liberty”, Isaiah Berlin introduced the now trite distinction between so-called “positive” and “negative” freedom. This distinction remains applicable
The Orania model and South Africa’s cosmopolitan liberals
Non-racialism is a key liberal implication, but so is freedom of association and private property. There is no contradiction between these principles, even when the
Privacy: We rightly always have something to hide, and thus much to fear
Privacy is one of the fundamental aspects of liberty that constitutionalism has long recognised and protected. In response, the state and state-adjacent advocates have run
Liberalism as “anti-politics” – and a cure for social rot
The recent controversies over “racism” at Pretoria High School for Girls and Chidimma Adetshina’s participation in Miss South Africa reveal an illness in South African