Did anyone catch President Bush’s endorsement of anarchism today? At least I reckon that’s what he must have meant when he said “America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling.” As one of the unwilling, I was very happy to hear
Herbert Spencer was one of the 19th century’s greatest defenders of peace and freedom. I’ve recently posted some chapters from his book Facts and Comments , published in the penultimate year of his life, on the evils of militarism and the reciprocal relation between imperialism, statism, and the brutalisation of popular culture. This is the first
As many of our readers will know, anarchism comes in both free-market and socialist varieties. Free-market anarchists (or “anarcho-capitalists”) like Gustave de Molinari and Murray Rothbard favour replacing the monopolistic state with competing private services in a fully capitalistic social order based on private property and free exchange. By
One of the presentations at the ASC this weekend was by Ed Stringham on Christian anarchist David Lipscomb, founder of Lipscomb University and author of an 1889 work titled Civil Government , arguing for anarchism on Biblical grounds. I’d never heard of Lipscomb, but he sounded interesting, so I did a quick websearch – which brought up a webpage
Francis Tandy’s essay “ Defence of Person and Property ,” from his 1896 book Voluntary Socialism , is one of the early explorations of the idea that private protection agencies competing on the free market would be preferable to the State. This classic discussion is now online; read it here . Background info available here
The latest additions to the Molinari Online Library are two early classics of the Austrian School: First: the 1893 English translation of Friedrich von Wieser’s 1889 treatise Natural Value . Wieser – student of Menger, brother-in-law of Böhm-Bawerk, and teacher of Hayek – was one of the founders of the Austrian tradition in economics. He’s
Two more additions to the Molinari Online Library : Stephen Pearl Andrews – disciple of Josiah Warren, sometime speechwriter for Victoria Woodhull, and an important influence on Benjamin Tucker – was an abolitionist, feminist, labour activist, individualist anarchist, and a leading proponent of “free love” – a term which in Andrews’ day denoted
The Journal of Libertarian Studies continues to bring you exciting cutting-edge scholarship in libertarian theory. Here’s what you’ll find in issue 20.3: One of the most popular contemporary arguments for the state comes from game theorists, who tend to model interaction without the state as a coordination problem which can be solved only by
How much insanity can you pack into a single paragraph? I think Thomas Friedman is a strong contender for the prize with this gem from a New York Times op-ed today (thanks to Sheldon Richman for the link): I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still
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.