Mises Daily

The attack on the principles of the Rule of Law was part of the general movement away from liberalism which began about 1870. It came almost entirely from the intellectual leaders of the socialist movement.

In the 20th century, the US regime started refusing to recognize other regimes that failed to pass a morality test. But what was "moral" was never clear since FDR enthusiastically supported the blood-soaked Soviet regime under Stalin.

Much of the media discussion around the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall will focus on American military politics and the politicians of the time. But to truly understand why the Soviet system in Eastern Europe collapsed, we must look to Mises's pioneering work on economic planning.

Murray Rothbard defines the phrase free market: "a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents."

"It may well be, that is, that the Bolsheviks had never had the slightest idea of what their aims would mean concretely for the economic life of Russia, how those aims would of necessity have to be implemented, or what the consequences would be."

It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.

The economic policy dominant in the Europe of the 17th and 18th centuries assumed that intervention in economic affairs was a proper function of government.

Unfortunately, some people prefer to attribute the cause of inflation not to an increase in the quantity of money but to the rise in prices.

The theory of class conflict did not begin with Karl Marx. It began with two French libertarians, and James Mill developed a similar theory in the 1820s and 1830s.

One of the characteristic features of this age is the general attack launched by all governments and pressure groups against the rights of creditors.