History

Best U.S President ever

IrishLiberal — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:26:55 GMT

Who was it?

What is "Western Civilization"?

Marko — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:15:29 GMT

Is anyone able to outline what is "Western Civilization"? And the seeming derivates of this term; "Western Culture" and "Western World"?

What is this "Western Civilization" built on, what impersonifies it. What does it encompass and most of all who is a part of it today? Who lies outside it, were are its borders?

When Tom Woods tells us the Catholic Church built Western Civilization, what is this civilization he is talking about? It is something that is puzzling me.

And an additional question for non-Americans. Would you say in your culture the terms "Western Civilization" and "Western Christianity" are seldom heard, or often heard?

History Reading List.

hayekianxyz — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:33:19 GMT

Here is the list as of now, if any mistakes are there please let me know. Also, hyperlinks and other changes will be made soon (putting them in alphabetical order for exaple)

American History:

Johnson - Modern Times
Allitt - Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950 - 1985
Genovese - Southern Front
Denson - Reassessing the Presidency
Quigley - The Ruses for War
Gutzman - The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution
Woods - Who Killed the Constitution
Adams - When in the Course of Human Events
Bradford - A Better Guide than Reason
Wood - The American Revolution
Danford - The Roots of Freedom
Denson - The Costs of War
Ely - War and Responsibiltiy
Fisher - Presidential War Power
Flynn - Forgotten Lessons
Flynn - The Roosevelt Myth
Higgs - The Resurgance of the Warfare State Since 9/11
Higgs - Crisis and Leviathan
Higgs - Depression, War and Cold War
Hummel - Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men
Johnson - A History of the American People
Masters - Lincoln the Man
McDonald - States Rights and the Union
Porter - War and the Rise of the State
Raimondo - Reclaiming the American Right
Rothbard - Conceived in Liberty
Rothbard - The Betrayal of the American Right
DiLorenzo - Hamilton's Curse
Woods - We Who Dared Say No To War
DiLorenzo - How Capitalism Saved America
DiLorenzo - The Real Lincoln
DiLorenzo - Lincoln Unmasked
Tansill - Backdoor to War
Flemming - The Illusion of Victory
Boot - The Savage Wars of Peace
Nock - Jefferson

European History:

Kuehnelt-Leddihin - Leftism Revisited
Kuehnelt-Leddihin - The Menace of the Herd
Kuehnelt-Leddihin - Liberty or Equality
Pugh - A Companion to Modern European History, 1871 - 1945
Hoppe - Democracy: The God That Failed
Baker - Human Smoke
Conquest - The Great Terror
Evans - Rereading German History
Wood - The Russian Revolution
Service - A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Putin
Philips - Lenin and the Russian Revolution
Figes - A People's Tragedy
Blackbourn - History of Germany, 1780 - 1918
Porter - Imperial Germany, 1890 - 1918
Williamson - The Third Reich
Chamberlain - The Scramble for Africa
Wright - Revolution and Terror in France, 1789 - 95
Wright - Napoleon and Europe
Price - The Revolutions of 1848
Curtoise - The Black Book of Communism
Hayek - The Road to Serfdom
Mises - Omnipotent Government
Jones - The European Miracle
Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago
Reismann - The Vampire Economy
Taylor - From Napoleon to the Second International
Taylor - The Habsburs Monarchy
Taylor - The Course of German History
Buchanan - Churchill, Hitler and the Unecessary War
Neilson - How Diplomats Make War
Taylor - The Origins of the Second World War
Taylor - The Struggle for Mastery in Europe
Gimpel - The Medieval Machine
Tuchman - A Distant Mirror
Taylor - Bismarck
Jones - The 1848 Revolutions
Kann - A History of the Hubsburg Empire
Jones - The French Revolution
Collier - Italian Unification 1820 - 1871
Porter - European Imperialism

History of Civilization:

Woods - How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
Adams - For Good and Evil
Burckhardt - Reflections on History
Creveld - The Rise and Decline of the State
Jasay - The State
Jouvenel - On Power
Jouvenel - Sovereignty
Rahe - Republics, Ancient and Modern
Palmer - A History of the Modern World
Cohn - The Pursuit of the Millenium
Keeley - The War Before Civilization
Rosenberg & Birdzell - How the West Grew Rich

Economic History:

Flynn - Men of Wealth
Dickson - Fiat Money Inflation in France
Friedman - Monetary History of the United States
Anderson - Economics and the Public Welfare
Galloway - Out of Work
Rothbard - America's Great Depression
Rothbard - the Panic of 1819
Rothbard - The Case Against the Fed
Sennolz - Age of Inflation
Shaffer - In Restraint of Trade
Kolko - The Triumph of Conservatism
Selgion - Good Money
Rothbard - A History of Money and Banking in the United States
Hazlitt - From Bretton Woods to World Inflation
Sumner - A History of American Currency
Robbins - The Great Depression
Flynn - Forgotten Lessons
Folsom - New Deal or Raw Deal
Garrett - Salvos against the New Deal
Mises - Causes of the Economic Crisis
Powell - FDR's Folly
Reed - Great Myths of the Great Depression
Schuettinger - Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Control
Slyvester - Kohler Strike
Hutt - The Economics of the Colour Bar
Gouge - A Short History of Money and Banking
Bresciani - Turroni - Economics of Inflation: A Study of Currency Depreciation in Post War Germany
Cleveland - Unmasking Sacred Lies
Beito - Taxpayers in Revolt
Schivelbusch - Three New Deals
Smiley - Rethinking the Great Depression
Oppenheimer - The State

History of Thought:

Huerta de Soto - The Austrian School
Skousen - Vienna and Chicago
Rothbard - An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought
Hulsmann - Mises: The Last Night of Liberalism
Hayek - Capitalism and the Historians
Selgin - Praxeology and Understanding
Laures - The Politically Economy of Juan de Mariana
Holcombe - 15 Great Austrian Economists
Chafuen - Faith and Liberty
Hutchinson - Early Economic Thought in Spain
Schumpeter - A History of Economic Analysis
Hayek - On The Trend of Economic Thinking
Clark - Commerce, Culture and Liberty
Kirzner - Mises
Raimondo - An Enemy of the State
Tracy - A Treatise on Political Economy
Raguet - Treatise on Currency and Banking
Cantillon - Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General
Say - Treatise of Political Economy
Condillac - Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship
Hayek - Hayek on Hayek

Others I don't know where to put are:

Engelbrecht - Merchants of Death

Executive Order 11,110?

Luis Buenaventura — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:26:57 GMT

I read on Wikipedia that Kennedy used the executive order power of the President ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11110 ) to fight against the FEDs monopoly on printing money-hence the, as the conspiracy theorists say, FED assassinated him. Any comments?

1907 Banker's Panic - Free Market or Government Intervention?

limitgov — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:25:20 GMT

A friend of mine uses the 1907 panic as justification of why the free market money failed and why we needed a central bank.

How was Hamilton anti-free markets?

NeophyteAustrian — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:10:14 GMT

I'm a freshman in high school and I'm new to AE (and economics in general since I haven't even taken a class on it ever). I read the articles on Mises.org and LewRockwell.com daily.

One of my teachers is very conservative and bashes Obama all the time (rare for a public school teacher) and I often get a kick out of when goes on his tirades.

But today he went on about how he loves Alexander Hamilton. So I told my teacher he isn't really pro free markets since he agrees with Hamilton. I told him Hamilton set up the first central bank and was a mercantalist and protectionist.

My teacher said that Hamilton set up that central bank to pay off all the Revolutionary War debt.

That's not true is it?

I want to set up a good argument against Hamilton.

-His central bank caused prices to raise over 70% in five years

-He was against international trade and wanted America to be a domestic monopoly

Panic of 1907 and other pre central bank crises

Ovah — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:40:31 GMT

I have just finished reading the wikipedia version of the Panic of 1907, where the authors were convinced that a central bank was needed to avoid these kind of speculative crises. I wonder what the austrian school's answer to the cause of these crises are, and if there eventually is any litterature treating these topics?

Why do Austrians like bow-ties so much?

Scott Jefferies — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:34:39 GMT

I have a great deal of respect for economists in this tradition and their ideas have had a huge impact on my philosophical and political views. So with all due respect, i have to ask... why do they like bow-ties so much?

Could Central Europe have been a force of prosperity?

Prateek Sanjay — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:13:55 GMT

So many brilliant intellectuals came from Central European nations of Hungary, Poland, and former Czechoslovakia.

From prominent Hollywood filmmakers like Milos Forman and Michael Curtiz to the brilliant linguist Leopold Weiner and his mathematician son Norbert Weiner and then to businessmen like George Soros, there was clearly a lot of brilliance concentrated among those nations.

And yet, Soviet expansion and communist satellite status destroyed the economic development of those nations and put its stock of human capital crushed under a central planning system. To an extent, the price of all those years under centrally planned economies is still being paid, and Hungary has not moved away from economic regulationism, as it still blocks foreign capital inflows.

I know "what if" questions aren't the most intelligent to entertain, but seriously, what could have come of these nations if they had been under systems similar to free-er nations than them? Was it their culture and tradition that helped produce such people, or were those people exceptions to the rule? Were they otherwise potentially prosperous nations put down by crippling systems, or was it exactly some inherent flaw in the Central European nature that prevented communist rule from being usurped earlier than it should have?

How Did Feudalism Arise?

shazam — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:39:03 GMT

The official explanation I have been given for this in history class is that peasants sought protection from wealthy lords, and traded their freedom in exchange for protection. I am curious if there are any alternative explanations for the rise of Feudalism during the Middle Ages, and if the official explanation is correct, then why wouldn't the lords have chosen to exchange protection for money instead of protection for serfdom?

John D. Rockefeller's wealth

No2statism — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:10:13 GMT

Was any of John D. Rockefeller's wealth due to the state (e.g., loopholes from regulations, lobbying, patents)?

Quantrill's Raid

Marko — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:01:07 GMT

Is it true that in Quantrill's Raid bushwackers massacred all blacks they could find including children, but killed only adult males among whites (as portrayed in Ride With The Devil)?

The First President of the United States?

Libertarian_for_Life — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:15:29 GMT

I heard that John Hanson was the first president of the United States from LaughingMan, so I did some more research.

John Hanson was a president of Congress of the United States after the Articles of Confederation was ratified, since there was only one branch of government (instead of judicial, executive, and legislative), I would say that being the president of Congress would be the president of the entire government, hence president of the United States, right?

For those who believe George Washington was the first president, just because we adopted a new law (the constitution), does that make us a new country? Was Russia not Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution? Was Athens not Athens before their democracy was established?

And if you say, "Well, the position then was different than the presidential position under the Constitution", well, under that case, how can all of the English Kings be under the same title? Their powers differed greatly.

However, I came across this website and it seems like Samuel Huntington was the first president to preside after the Articles of Confederation were ratified, but only served for 3 months and John Hanson was actually the 3rd president.

I'm confused, what do you guys think?

Banking History Questions

Snowflake — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:34:26 GMT

I've been watching documentaries about the fed, and some questions came up which I can't find immediate/satisfactory answers to.

Who owns the federal reserve?

What banks do people refer to when they say "international banking cartels" or "international banks funded both sides of ww1/2"?

Were the world wars caused by these bankers?

Did the same international banks fund the rise of Lenin and Mao?

What was the roll of these bankers during the cold war?

Citations and links please. A lot of this stuff borders on crazy conspiracy theory.

Two Questions (Panic of 1837/Independent Treasury)

Beefheart — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:56:27 GMT

Can someone link me to, or better yet, explain to me what exactly caused the Panic of 1837? I know a little bit about it, but I don't really have a grip on it like I do the Panic of 1819. Could someone help me out?

Similarly, what was the Independent Treasury under van Buren... and why did it fail?

Was it right of the US to enter WW2?

Prateek Sanjay — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:49:31 GMT

Murray Rothbard famously said, "Our entry into World War II was the crucial act in foisting a permanent militarization upon the economy and society, in bringing to the country a permanent garrison state, an overweening military-industrial complex, a permanent system of conscription. It was the crucial act in creating a mixed economy run by Big Government, a system of state-monopoly capitalism run by the central government in collaboration with Big Business and Big Unionism."

It is quite telling that the Old Right and the old Republican Party of the United States had people who did not approve of US entry into the Second World War. Jeannette Rankin voted against US entry into the war, even after Pearl Harbour. Before Pearl Harbour, Republican stance was against any intervention or action related to the war in Europe. Isolationists like Vandenberg and Taft considered such intervention as unconstitutional. Many angry outspoken sort of people did not try to even be subtle and bluntly considered League of Nations and United Nations to be a move towards international communism, with the US at its forefront, which they felt to be in line with what they considered to be the "socialism" propogated by Roosevelt.

Just look at the cost of that war. Allowing the lives of thousands of young men to be thrown away. Government rationing and price controls. An industry of war profiteers. Resources of that nation diverted towards fueling that war. A massive public debt and enormous inflation which left a huge cost to be borne by anybody who bought government bonds at that time, since their real value became far less than what it was before the war. And all of it just so that US could liberate other nations for which it had responsibility, and then spend billions of dollars rebuilding their nations, whilst finding themselves confronted with the now empowered Soviets who ate up half of Europe. And in the internationalist paranoia that followed after, US was building bases all over the world and did questionable things like appointing a puppet Shah in Iran. And most of all, the terror of possible nuclear warfare. Such a cost was borned by the entire world.

Does anybody think that maybe if the US focused on protecting its seas against Japanese raids, and not go all the way with sending their troops into Europe to fight Nazi Germany, it could have secured the future of its own nation better? Instead of going for total war, and even aggravating the terrible losses they already suffered in Pearl Harbour, so as to keep focusing on their development as a peaceful industrial nation, and work rather to make the lives of its own citizens better?

Was it really the United States' war?

Why did so called "western" nations develop faster than what are now 2nd and 3rd world nations?

Ansury — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:39:38 GMT

I'm asking in the context of the last say, 400 years or so, since that's when Europe (and the US eventually) really started to take off.

In part I'm also asking, did imperialism give western nations a head start, or was it other factors such as economic freedom, trade, culture, etc.?

The Soviet Story

yoshimura — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:12:10 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdsa5-jKzy4

The Soviet Story  is a unique first time 
documentary film by director Edvins Snore. 

The film tells the story of the Soviet regime and how the Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the 
Holocaust. 

The film shows recently uncovered archive documents revealing this. 

Interviews with former Soviet Military intelligence officials reveal shocking details. 

The Soviet Story was filmed over 2 years in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, France, UK and Belgium. 

Material for the documentary was collected by the author, Edvins Snore, for more than 10 years. 

As a result,  The Soviet Story  presents a truly unique insight into recent Soviet history, told by people,
once Soviet citizens, who have first-hand knowledge of it

Looking for a quote...

Silverfish2910 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:38:59 GMT

I think I read it on LewRockwell.com some time back. It was something why politicians shouldn't feather their nests. It went something like...

Don't give out favours or power to political friend when they will eventually be in the hands of enemies.

Does anyone know the quote and who said it?

Seventeenth Amendment

Deist — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:48:42 GMT

I use to support repealing the seventeenth amendment to the United States Constitution but I have changed my mind upon finding the style and scope of legislation passed by pre seventeenth amendment Senators

Legislation before the seventeenth amendment was passed:

1)Both National Bank bills, National Banking system (1860's till 1913) and eventually the Federal Reserve Act
2) The Erdman Act (outlawed "yellow dog" contracts)
3) Pure Food and Drug Act,
4) Land grants to corrupt railroads
5) Sherman Anti trust act
6) Alien and Sedition Act

And the list goes on.

Pre seventeenth amendment senators did not give a hoot about states rights if federal power could be used to subject a minority of other states to their states advantage. The major cog that slowed down centralization was an adamant federal judiciary.

Centralization was in no way slowed down by state legislative appointment. If that was the case then Germany should be one of the most decentralized governments on the planet.

The surest way to bring back Federalism is to revive the non-delegation doctrine. Federal Executive Agencies pass more laws per year than all laws passed by congress and signed by the president through out history. And those congressionally created laws include ones that the federal courts struck down.That sheer amount of regulation floods the courts on the state level (because state governments delegate as well) and the Federal courts cannot nullify them since the Supreme Court will not let them due to New Deal case law.

But do not get me wrong I don't think reviving the non-delegation doctrine is going to happen, nor do I believe that present senators are better then they used to be. I just think the focus on repealing the seventeenth as misguided and inneffectual. A politician is a poltician no matter who elects them.

Was fighting the barbary pirates good or bad?

Smiling Dave — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:38:57 GMT

Ive seen the good side to it, but I seem to remember there's an opposing, possibly Austrian, view.

Looking for resources

Peter Sidor — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:42:37 GMT

Hallo all, I am looking for good, authoritative, resources, preferably with an Austrian outlook or concentrating on topics of our interest. Online availability would be of course great. Right now it's two themes:

- history of Ancient Egypt, in particular its granaries and their use as banks of a sort. How did they work; was there any inflation, what was the impact of government of those times?

- medieval banking history of the Western Europe, particularly Italy, where banking in modern form is said to originate.

Mentioned offhandedly in many books, few seem to devote them more than a sentence or two. A solid article would be sufficient.

Thanks!

Sanitation Question

Beefheart — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:31:01 GMT

Specifically in regards to New York City and other major cities (like Baltimore) in the 1820's - 1840's (mass urbanization). There was a lot of issues with human waste (people just dumping their... excretions every which way). My history book (A People and a Nation, seventh edition) says that the government "lacked adequate taxing power" and that "The private sector, however, failed to supply the water the cities needed. Private firms lacked the capital to build adequate systems, and they laid pipe only in commercial and well-to-do residential areas, ignoring the poor. As populations grew, city governments had to take over."

There just HAS to be more to this story than what the book is telling me. Ever since I read what it had to say about market economies and its Keynesian descriptions of the Panics of 1819 and 1837, I have no faith in this book whatsoever. Especially when considering economics and market topics.

Pretty much all other examples I know of suggest that when people demand something, the market delivers at more affordable prices. What prevented the market providing services for the poorer people when it seemed most crucial? Would it simply of "trickled down" to the lower-income areas over time? Did these cities even HAVE the time to wait? The textbook naturally spends little to no time on this topic, so I'm hoping all of you can offer me insight into what happened.

Robert Welch and the John Birch Society

Prateek Sanjay — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:33:47 GMT

Robert Welch was one of the strongest anti-establishment persons on the other side of the curtain during the Cold War - probably having villified the US more deeply and perhaps hatefully than any person on either the Old Right, or the libertarians, or the socialist/communist side.

He considered post-WW2 US Presidents to be Communists, and felt they were people achieving the same goals on the different side of the world. He felt the Cold War was a sham and believed the US government and Soviet Russia to be more aligned in ultimate interests than being any different from one another. He even considered them to be headed by the exact same group of elites.

Robert Welch's ideas reflect the typical conspiracy theorist paranoia of men like David Icke and Alex Jones; claiming that the Illuminati was the real force in power in the world and was at war against the very people it controlled, supposedly under the guise of conflicting governments. His claims of Communist and secret society allegiances were put against many top people of the government and alleged to be far deeper in them than what any other person would dare claim.

What I simply wonder is this - was Robert Welch crazy? Or was he merely using hyperbole?

Would you condone his manner and his ideas, even if it was tilted towards the same anti-statist anti-globalist directions as the other groups who have opposed US policy?

A history of statist terror

Prateek Sanjay — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:51:30 GMT

The following are all the well established and consensually agreed instances of a state conspiring against its own people.

- Japanese army bombed its own railway, blamed it on the Chinese, and used it as a justification to invade China

- Nazis faked attacks on their own citizens and industrial supply centers, blamed it on the Poles, and used it as a justification to invade Poland

- Nazis burnt Reichstag so as to give Hitler powers of state

- Israeli defense ministry, under Pinhas Lavon, planted explosives in US information agency offices in Egypt so as to blame radical Arab nationalists, but the bombers were caught prematurely, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment or death, being assumed to be independent saboteurs

- KGB conducted bombings in Russia to blame Chechnyans, a pretext for starting the war on Chechnya and bringing Putin to power

- Turkish government bombed its own offices so as to blame the PKK and start a crackdown on them

- CIA and Shah-ist intelligence groups bombed clergy residences and blamed it on pro-democracy revolutionaries

- NATO did bombings in Italy in the 1970s so as to blame communist revolutionaries

- Soviet Union did artillery bombardment on a Russian village near Finland, blamed it on Finland, attacked it four days later

Anybody know more?