Yes, the Bush administration has paid intellectuals to echo its political priorities. What’s more surprising, actually, is all those who toe the line without being paid. Never wonder again how it is that the pharaohs were treated as gods, how Kim Il Sung and Nicholai Ceausescu got away with making monuments and billboards to themselves and forcing
M.N. Rothbard, 1956, Submitted to National Review , but rejected: I would like to take this opportunity, once and for all, to set the record straight on the famous old cliché: “after all, no man has a right falsely to shout fire in a crowded threatre.” This formula of that old cynic, Justice Holmes, has been used time and again as an excuse for
Journalist Rick Perlstein recently asked for my forecast on the future of the Republican Party. It’s an important question. American political culture takes election victory to be the ratification of truth, which is why this question is usually addressed from the point of view of whether the party will continue to hold power. I would rather
If we are to have a serious debate about eminent domain, we need to get beyond this ridiculous distinction between public and private use. Government is a racket that rewards itself through plunder and always in the name of public purpose. The truth is that there is no coherent way to separate public and private purpose when it comes to
Last Friday, as the puppet leaders in Iraq were arguing about what is going to be the Iraqi constitution, they had to speak especially loudly to be heard over the explosions and bombs outside. These are not ideal conditions under which to forge a new governing authority, especially one purporting to grant liberty and rights. The first ambition of
The privatization plot was hatched decades ago as a scheme to get around the need for truth and radical reform. It has amounted to nothing. Such is the price of compromise and “political realism.” The lesson is that there is no substitute for truth – even in politics. [ Full Article on LRC
Why the state goes to war is not a mystery – at least the general reasons are not mysterious. War is an excuse for spending money on its friends. It can punish enemies that are not going with the program. It intimidates other states tempted to go their own way. It can pave the way for commercial interests linked to the state. The regime that makes
What is the relationship between the rise of big government and the rise of American prosperity? It seems that people on the right and left are quick to confuse correlation with causation. They believe that the US is wealthy because the government is big and expansive. This error is probably the most common of all errors in political economy. It
Our times are much like the 1930s, when it was widely assumed that there are only two viable ideological positions: communism or fascism. Liberalism of the old school was considered to be a failure, and not even worth considering. Why does libertarianism never entirely disappear, despite every attempt to kill it? In part, because a strain of
The alleged war on Christmas , and the first real war as waged by Massachusetts Puritans in the 17th century.
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.