In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. —George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946 Language is at the core of everything we perceive, know, think, and express. We use words as a tool, to communicate and navigate life in a social context. We use them at every stage of cognition, from our
Language is the perfect instrument of empire. —Antonio de Nebrija, Bishop of Ávila, 1492 Language is an institution in society. In both its oral and written forms, language functions as a mechanism for communication and as a cognitive tool. But language serves much broader societal and even civilizational functions. Like any institution, it
On the dedication page of Ron Paul ’ s The Revolution: A Manifesto , we find these words: “To my supporters: I have never been more humbled and honored than by your selfless devotion to freedom and the Constitution.” The modifier “ selfless” is intended as a moral tribute. Imagine instead if he had written “ selfish.” How would that go over? What
The value of time, i.e., time preference or the higher valuation of want-satisfaction in nearer periods of the future as against that in remoter periods, is an essential element in human action. It determines every choice and every action. There is no man for whom the difference between sooner and later does not count. The time element is
In this week’s column, I’d like to continue discussing Graham Priest’s unusual book Capitalism : Its Nature and Its Replacement . Priest uses ideas he gets from Marxism and Buddhism to criticize capitalism. Last week, I said that Priest has interesting things to say about Marxism but I avoided Buddhism. This time I won’t avoid it, because the
On we go, further and further into the era of post-journalism, where outlets survive not on the accuracy and honesty of their reporting but on the appeal of their narrative. —Fred Skulthorp, The Critic Nobody has missed that the West suffers from a credibility problem. Its institutions—by which we mean the media, government officials, academia,
David Gordon continues his analysis of Graham Priest’s book, Capitalism: Its Nature and Its Replacement . While Priest might not understand either Marxism or capitalism, his book has useful insights. Original Article: “Marxist States Never “Wither Away” as Marx
More than forty years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn urged his fellow Russians “not to live by lies.” In our politicized age, his words ring truer than ever. Original Article: Totalitarian Ideals and Not Living by
Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot distinguish fact from fiction. It also isn’t creative or can create novel content but repeats, repackages, and reformulates what has already been said (but perhaps in new ways). I am sure someone will disagree with the latter, perhaps pointing to the fact that AI can clearly generate, for example, new songs and
When Silicon Valley Bank and other banks failed earlier this year, the debate over the sustainability of fractional reserve banking resurfaced. Under fractional reserve banking, banks keep only a fraction of customers’ deposits in reserve. The difference is bank credit, such as government debt, mortgages, business loans, and many other kinds of
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.