History: The Struggle for Liberty

1. The European Miracle

World HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Ralph Raico covers classical liberalism’s growth, development and possible future. Liberalism arose in Europe entwined with Christianity. Why Europe? The East lacked the idea of freedom from the state and never established the legal system that could protect wealth. Europe had multiple,...
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2. Classical Liberalism

World HistoryPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Mises’ book, Liberalism, states that liberalism sufficed to change the face of the earth . The term liberal has since been hijacked by social democrats, so they don’t have to use the tainted word socialism . Raico defines liberalism to be civil society,...
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3. John Stuart Mill

World HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Mill played a crucial, but inflated, role in liberalism. Rothbard did not like Mill much. Mill was a disaster on economic freedom and international issues. Mill rejected that workers and capitalists shared interests. Mill was anti-capitalist.
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4. Class and Conflict

War and Foreign PolicyWorld HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Gustave de Molinari became the grand old man of classical liberalism, crediting Pareto. Molinari understood that the main issue in the Civil War was the tariff, not slavery. In Italy economists founded free market economics, crediting Bastiat.
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5. War, Peace, and the Industrial Revolution

War and Foreign PolicyWorld HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
It was thought that the ultimate antidote to war was universal democracy. It was not. Spencer defined liberal democracy as an individual free to control the product of his own efforts on the market. Welfare societies could not rationally be termed democracies.
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6. The New World of Capitalism

Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
In the face of overwhelming evidence of the prosperity of capitalism, Marxists were forced to rephrase their arguments from material provisions to quality of life. Robert Nozick, a brilliant philosopher of liberty, became a libertarian. Anarchy, State, and Utopia, his main book, dominates debate in...
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7. The Anti-Capitalists

World HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Humans are prone to envy , writes Helmut Schoeck in Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior. Humans try to set up a society in which none is envious of another. George Stigler of the Chicago School saw man as always a utility maximizer.
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8. The Planned Society

Legal SystemWorld HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Utopian socialism was a term created by Marx and Lenin to denigrate the enemies of Marx and Lenin. Henri de Saint-Simon’s ideology of the industrial class, opposed to the idling class, inspired and influenced utopian socialism.
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9. The First World War

War and Foreign PolicyWorld HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Intellectuals are pro-power and anti-market. Great presidents are war presidents who glorify power. The Costs of War and Reassessing the Presidency are recommended books on this topic. The First World War was a turning point which vastly extended state power, and vastly destroyed social power.
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10. Classical Liberalism and the Welfare-Warfare State

War and Foreign PolicyWorld HistoryPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical Theory

09/03/2004Mises Media
Germany surrendered conditionally in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. Everybody opposed the treaty, but it was forcibly implemented. Revisionism is necessary to combat state propaganda, e.g. the lie in WWII that FDR was surprised by Pearl Harbor.
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