Political Theory

No government can live up to its billing as a semi-divine problem solver. Government intervention is not an alternative to the market; it merely creates a different kind of market full of con men selling very sour lemons.

Instead of incorporating the agenda of those who would malign free enterprise, business schools should do more to educate tomorrow's corporate executives about the myriad ways in which business advances social progress.

Prior to the Keynesian era, recessions were called panics and had durations of about three months. The shortness in duration reflected the lack of interventionism by extra-market authorities. Today, recessions last much longer, as the bad idea that the state should manage the economy has become legitimized.

The Free Market 19, no. 11 (November 2001)

The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom. It is no accident that the age of capitalism became also the age of government by the people.

Presidents assume near dictatorial powers during wars, and FDR was able to manipulate World War II to provide moral legitimacy to his domestic agenda. With the war, Roosevelt could boast of eliminating unemployment at home while fighting evil abroad. Not a bad deal.

The pessimistic scenario is not only that American businessmen, students, and tourists will forever fear to travel in any nation with a Muslim community. It could also mean disinvestment overseas, the further impoverishment of the developing world, a lasting world depression, a world split into major warring blocks, and police-state policies at home.

For too long,we libertarians have allowed our misguided opponents to monopolize the banner of equality. We have more right to that banner than they do. The time has come to seize it back.

"Socialism" and "think tank" are mutually exclusive-even contradictory. Socialism does, however, produce lots of tanks: tanks to suppress people who actually do think. 

What the Misesians have done in Guatemala is create an intellectual infrastructure that promotes a hard-core attachment to freedom among the business class, which dovetails very nicely with the working classes' instinctive opposition to taxes.