In granting official diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in November 1933 Franklin Roosevelt was “unintentionally,” of course, returning to the traditions of American foreign policy. From the early days of the Republic, throughout the 19th century and into the 20th — in the days, that is, of the doctrine of neutrality and nonintervention —
The year 1898 was a landmark in American history. It was the year America went to war with Spain—our first engagement with a foreign enemy in the dawning age of modern warfare. Aside from a few scant periods of retrenchment, we have been embroiled in foreign politics ever since. Starting in the 1880s, a group of Cubans agitated for independence
In the two centuries or so of our history, it has happened that a few of our leaders — a very few — became symbols of some powerful idea, one that left a permanent imprint on the life of our country. Thomas Jefferson is one such symbol. With Jefferson, it is the idea of a free, self-governing people, dedicated to the enjoyment of their God-given
The sharp contrast that Alexis de Tocqueville drew in 1835 between the United States and Tsarist Russia—”the principle of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude” —became much sharper after 1917, when the Russian Empire was transformed into the Soviet Union. Like the United States, the Soviet Union is a nation founded on a distinct
The third and final volume of Robert Skidelsky’s celebrated Keynes biography , John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946 (New York: Viking Press, 2001) has just been published, to rave reviews. Like its predecessors, this volume makes no mention of Keynes’s uncritical praise of Stalinist Russia in 1936, although I brought it to
I. Introduction Classical liberalism — which we shall call here simply liberalism — is based on the conception of civil society as, by and large, self-regulating when its members are free to act within very wide bounds of their individual rights. Among these the right to private property, including freedom of contract and free disposition of
[from The Independent Review , v. 13, n. 2, Fall 2008, pp. 165–188.] Keynes and Neomercantilism It is now common practice to rank John Maynard Keynes as one of modern history’s outstanding liberals, perhaps the most recent “great” in the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, and Thomas Jefferson. Like these men, it is generally held, Keynes was a
[ The Politics of Hunger: Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915-1919 • By C. Paul Vincent • Ohio University Press (1985) • 185 pages. This review was first published in the Review of Austrian Economics 3, no. 1.] States throughout history have persisted in severely encumbering and even prohibiting international trade. Seldom, however, can the
[First published as “The Taboo Against Truth: Holocausts and the Historians,” Liberty , September 1989.] “Speaking truth to power” is not easy when you support that power. Perhaps this is the reason why so few Western historians are willing to tell the whole truth about state crimes during this century. Last fall the Moscow News reported the
[Sandro Scoppa of the Vincenzo Scoppa Foundation reports that the Italian municipality of Soverato will name an important street after Ludwig von Mises. More than thirty years ago, Ralph Raico announced some of the early signs of the libertarian movement in Italy. This article was originally published as “Il libertarismo arriva in Italia —
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.