The Best of Reason Magazine

An economist explores how a stable and relatively just legal order emerged in medieval Japan.

Endangered red wolves became a symbol of federal overreach—and a target for local ire—in eastern North Carolina.

The GOP faces a choice about how to move forward.

The spread of Ultimate Frisbee testifies to a kind of Western soft power in the Middle East, one far friendlier than bombs or bullets.

Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy's book tells the stories of soldiers, stalkers, and squatters in Chernobyl during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Critics on both the left and the right decry surrogacy as exploitative, especially when carriers are compensated.

"The effects were immediately seen by everyone and they were all beneficial," says the former vice president of Argentina's central bank.

The right to a reasonable accommodation has produced some absurd results.

How the U.S. military busts its budget on wasteful, careless, and unnecessary "self-licking ice cream cones."

Politicians in both major parties see the People's Republic as an economic and military threat. But the real threat is an isolated China.

How a 1949 Supreme Court dissent gave birth to a meme that subverts free speech and civil liberties.

Is Elon Musk a reactionary with a defective bullshit meter or the best part of the second Trump administration?

There's a good reason Biden eventually stopped saying Bidenomics. Americans didn't like the results of his economic policies.

American history is often a story of people leaving to try to build their voluntary utopias.

How much should a Wendy's Baconator cost? Elizabeth Warren thinks the government should help decide.

Journalists increasingly see their job as protecting their preferred candidates, not asking tough questions.

In the Abolish Everything issue, Reason writers make the case for ending the DEA, ICE, the SBA, and everything else.

In the Abolish Everything issue, Reason writers make the case for ending Amtrak, the FDA, the TSA, and everything else.

A recent study shows that women experience a short-term "motherhood penalty," but their earnings rebound within a decade.

From 9/11 to the COVID-19 pandemic, crisis moments keep reshaping the political landscape.

Can't Americans all just get along? Maybe we can't—and perhaps we shouldn't have to.

Mom-and-pop marijuana operations do not exist in Florida. That's by design.

Changing migration patterns, outdated policy tools, and growing presidential power made it inevitable.

Harris is running away from her far-left past.

This Kentucky Republican won't stop until he finds a state willing to make legal room for ibogaine, a drug he calls "God's medicine."

Reason talked with pro-life Americans who are uncomfortable with the post–Roe v. Wade abortion policy landscape.

America's COVID celebrity is facing scrutiny for funding risky research that may have sparked the pandemic—and for allegedly covering it up.

From salt riots to toilet paper runs, history shows that rising prices make consumers—and voters—grumpy and irrational.

Trump promised to hire "only the best people," yet his presidential plans were repeatedly thwarted by his staff. Will a second term be different?

Thousands of people who helped the U.S. in Afghanistan are still looking for an escape.

Bad policy and paranoid parenting are making kids too safe to succeed.

The former California senator and prosecutor has a long record of pushing illiberal policies.

Why (almost) everyone should stay home on Election Day

The lethal consequences of a common, obscure hospital licensing law.

How legislators learned to stop worrying about the constitutionality of federal drug and gun laws by abusing the Commerce Clause.

Both parties—and the voters—are to blame for the national debt fiasco.

Georgia parents were accused of child abuse after they took their daughter to the doctor. Does the state's story add up?

Don't blame criminal justice reform or a lack of social spending for D.C.'s crime spike. Blame government mismanagement.

Ending U.S. aid would give Washington less leverage in the Middle East. That's why it's worth doing.

The obstacles to having more babies can't be moved by tax incentives or subsidized child care.

The number of job openings far exceeds the number of unemployed Americans. Seasonal businesses can't get the foreign labor they need.

As allegations of intellectual property theft swirl, a deeper look reveals a tale of phony numbers and twisted data.

Revolutionary AI technologies can't solve the "wicked problems" facing policy makers.

Is AI-written poetry cheating if you laboriously trained the AI?

OnlyFans lets women distribute their own porn. Artificial intelligence will give them even more control.

Historical teaching and research are being revamped by AI.

AI developer Andrew Mayne explains why technology could create more jobs and lead to unprecedented economic growth.

Science can detect increasingly small particles of plastic in our air and water. That doesn't mean it's bad for you.

San Francisco's prohibitionists worried that opium dens were patronized by "young men and women of respectable parentage" as well as "the vicious and the depraved."

The modern presidency is a divider, not a uniter. It has become far too powerful to be anything else.

The U.S. is dispensing munitions to Ukraine and Israel faster than they can be replaced.