Political Theory

The anthology collects a number of influential articles about equality, by such eminent philosophers as John Rawls, T.M. Scanlon, Derek Parfit, and G.A. Cohen. 

Libertarianism favors the political ideals set forth in the early republic, writes Adam Young: an order of peace, free trade and individual self-government, where the state was restricted in its interference in the life of the churches, and the state was largely irrelevant to the economy and to the daily lives of the average American citizen.

What's the difference between the cultures of the private sector and the public sector? Consider the difference between Arthur Andersen, which has no future, and the U.S. Forest Service, which will live forever. The answer can be traced to property rights, and it explains why market outcomes are always held to a much higher standard than public-sector outcomes.

Pat Buchanan’s remarkable book expresses a distinctively nationalist thesis; and, as a conscientious reviewer in good standing, I shall of course say something about it. 

The Enron story provides what academics call "teaching moments," that is, opportunities to explain how economic theory can explain the outcome of state involvement in market processes. Interventionism often results in failures such as Enron's, and lessons learned by studying it may help avoid similar problems in the future.

Like mafioso John Gotti, the state uses the threat of coercion to extort money from citizens, writes William Anderson. Unlike Gotti, who never would have dreamed of demanding nearly half of a firm's profits, the state takes more than 40 percent of what a business collects over its costs.

To make a transition from statism to the market economy means a complete revolution in economic and political life, writes Lew Rockwell, from one where the state and its interests rule to a system where the power of the state plays no role. Freedom is not a public-policy option. It is the end of public policy itself.

Based on the record of deceit documented by Robert Caro in his book The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate, Lyndon Baines Johnson was an evil man even before his disastrous presidency--a presidency in which he and his minions misled Americans into the Vietnam War, a presidency that nearly caused a civil war in this country.

"The myth of Lincoln cannot stand up under scrutiny," says Thomas DiLorenzo, "and after all these years, the word is finally getting out." Mises.org interviews DiLorenzo on his new book and its thesis that Lincoln's legacy was not freedom but the consolidated state. The book's high sales are as notable as the explosive controversy that has erupted about his thesis. 

Since 1997, the federal government's office space has expanded by 280 million square feet. The average American family homestead is 2,100 square feet. The massive Empire State building fills 2.1 million feet. Thus, in only five years the federal government's physical size has grown by 134,000 single family homes or 90 Empire State Buildings.