The Misesian, vol. 1, no. 4, 2024

The federal government uses wars as excuses to eviscerate American freedoms, spend trillions of dollars and rack up gargantuan deficits that will impose a heavy financial burden for decades to come. We oppose this, root and branch.

Ukraine and Israel are current boutique wars of choice, connected to and very much like those the U.S. government pursued for profit and show in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere. It is imperative to understand why the U.S. fights these wars.

The growth of the state through war included not only developing new technologies for making war, but also coming up with new financial techniques such as inflation and other wealth transfers to the government, which made the increasingly expensive wars possible.

From its earliest decades, the defenders of freedom — known historically as “classical liberals,” “radicals,” and “libertarians,” have sought to reduce and limit the war-making powers of the state. Here is a sampling of thoughts from these liberals. 

The government can conscript you into its army, can cause your death or mutilation in some war that has nothing to do with national defense, and execute you if you resist.

It is ironic that the leaders of the American state are quick to condemn foreign dictators as irrational when their own policies are often irrational themselves.

The court intellectuals who want conflict with China pose a grave threat to America.