Philosophy and Methodology

The American founders struggled for liberty against grasping government officials. But the despotism of their day was nothing compared with our own. 

Walter Block decries statists who distort the meaning of words, and also those who kowtow to their politically correct agenda.

In at least one area, the US economic expansion has left a trail of destruction in its wake: on it are members of the profession that pretends to forecast future economic conditions. Gene Epstein of Barron's, speaking at a Mises Institute conference, cited as an example the famous Wall Street Journal survey of economists, published on a regular basis. It represents ten years of solid failure.

We are so used to celebrating the glories of the democratic state, we often forget its limitations. 

You may never have heard of them, but they battled against the main cause of state expansion in the 20th century. 

Why the attempt to eliminate social and economic inequality always and everywhere ends in massive coercion. 

This year's political campaigns highlight at least one positive trend: the "best and brightest," who nearly wrecked us, are no longer wasting their talents serving the state. 

In the last several decades, step by step, the system has become Diocletianized.

War and methodological empiricism are freedom's greatest enemies. Both must be soundly rejected to achieve the classical ideal of liberty. 

I approached this book with considerable sympathy. Murray Rothbard rested much of his Ethics of Liberty on the foundation of Thomist natural law.