Mises Daily

How did a masterpiece like Man, Economy, and State come to be written? Stromberg unearths Rothbard's correspondence: "I shall try to do for Mises what McCulloch did for Ricardo."

It may be fashionable to blame the market economy for all of society's ills, writes Art Carden, but this blame is undeserved and many scholars' faith in alternatives to the market is misplaced. No socialist regime has ever held a free election, and no free market has ever produced a death camp. Popular academic opinions to the contrary, the market works. And we can take that to the bank.

In one of its news dispatches following the trial, CNN declared that the Martha Stewart case was part of the government's "crackdown on corporate corruption."  This is ridiculous, write William Anderson and Candice Jackson. Stewart was not a "corrupt" executive, nor did she break the law when she sold her shares of the temporarily doomed ImClone stock. No, Stewart apparently committed the "crime" of being wealthy and well-connected. 

So Greenspan says that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are so big and so out of control that they represent a threat to the whole financial system. Well, asks Frank Shostak, just how does Greenspan think they got to be that way? Might it have something to do with a central bank that guarantees the life of not only these two institutions but every bank in the US?

The current American current account deficit, writes Stefan Karlsson,reflects dangerous policy trends.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 percent in January, its biggest increase in nearly a year. The CPI core rate, which excludes energy and food prices — like any of us can go without gasoline or food — rose 0.2 percent. Both increases surprised analysts, but normal people — people who actually pay money for goods and services — weren't surprised.

Ryan Ford says he is glad to do the work others are unwilling to do at the going market wage. When one looks at the grocery workers who are striking for higher pay, their tactics and principles, he asks: is this consistent with freedom? Is this what free and fair trade is? To use coercion to force others to trade under your conditions is folly.

The battle for liberty is in the end a battle over ideas, writes Jude Blanchette. If the last testament of one of the last great socialists of our time is any indication, the struggle for freedom and capitalism is indeed a hopeful one. And yet, while the world can live without the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, it could use his sense of passion.

With his lack of principles and scruples, Churchill was involved in one way or another in nearly every disaster that befell the 20th century, writes Adam Young. He helped destroy laissez-faire liberalism, he played a role in the Crash of 1929, he helped start WWI, and by bringing in America to help, prolonged the war and created the conditions for the rise of Nazism, prolonged WWII, laid the groundwork for Soviet domination, helped involve America in a cold war with Russia, and pioneered in the development of total war and undermining western civilized standards.

An extraordinary and wide ranging interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe: "The apologists of the central state claim that a proliferation of independent political units would lead to economic disintegration and impoverishment. Today, however, manny small countries are all wealthier than their surroundings. Moreover, theoretical reflection also shows that this claim is just another statist myth."