[Chapter 11 of The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production, edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2003), pp. 369–413.]

Inflation in America continues to rise, and with it skepticism in Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell’s insistence that increased prices are “transitory.” This double whammy of consumer pain and declining institutional confidence increases the odds of another challenge to the Fed’s current plans: a change in leadership.

Once in a blue moon, the Austrian school attracts the attention of serious scholars outside of its tradition.

In a speech to the nation just ahead of Bastille Day on July 14 celebrating the French Revolution, President Emmanuel Macron delivered a paradoxical blow to the Republic’s famous slogan: Liberté, égalité, fraternité. He announced a series of measures to speed up the pace of covid-19 vaccinations which undermine individual liberties and threaten a strong political and economic backlash.

I was a small child when I first heard Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, spoken of. This was in the early 1960s, when I began to accompany my father on road trips he took with our family once or twice a year to Lisbon to visit and monitor the operation of the Portuguese branch office of our family’s life insurance business.