Walter Block’s new book Toward a Libertarian Society covers a wide variety of topics from the death penalty to secession, and from war to macroeconomics. Dr. Block recently spoke with the Mises Institute about just a few of these. Mises Institute: You say in your book that it is a contradiction in terms to be both libertarian and to be for an
[ This is the second of a regular column by Walter Block, senior scholar of the Mises Institute, professor of economics at the University of Central Arkansas, and author of Defending the Undefendable , a brilliant application of economic logic to everyday problems and political issues. You can read Professor Block’s vita here ] In my last column ,
[This is Part Three of a series. You can also read Part One and Part Two ] Stakeholder A new word has crept into our lexicon, courtesy of our friends on the left. It is “stakeholder” and it is the entering wedge of yet another attack on private property rights. In the good old days, a firm had contractual obligations to its suppliers, to its
Swamps Ever notice something curious? There are no more “swamps” out there. Swamps used to be bodies of water that smelled bad, were usually stagnant, and often had creepy crawly things running around in them, sometimes even alligators (or crocodiles, for the life of me I can’t tell the difference between them, nor do I want to learn enough about
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a faraway place (actually, a contrary-to-fact made-up one), there lived a group of human beings without benefit of government. Any government at all. How did they manage? Well, whenever there was a dispute between two neighbors, or friends, or merchants, or between a retailer and a customer, the plaintiff and
[Introduction to The Privatization of Roads and Highways . Walter Block writes, “This book is dedicated to my fellow Americans, some 40,000 of them per year who have died needlessly in traffic fatalities. It is my sincere hope and expectation that under a system of private roads and highways in the future, that this number may be radically
[This article is excerpted from The Privatization of Roads and Highways .] Question: Suppose the state is taken out of the equation; let’s presume private road owners can write and enforce the rules of the road. As it is in their best interest to ensure safety, the roads will be used more and therefore become more profitable. Given that this is
[ Libertarian Papers (2010)] The essence of libertarianism is its nonaggression principle. In order to determine whether some act or concept or institution is compatible with this philosophy, one may use this as a sort of litmus test. If you initiate violence against someone, you must pay the penalty for so doing, and are presumptively acting
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.