Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

President Joe Biden has promised to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour. 

One of Robert Greene’s forty-eight laws of power in his book that goes by that same name is to “create compelling spectacles” as a means of creating the aura of power. One can imagine what this sort of thing looks like. Perhaps we think of movies in which an antagonist commits an act of great terror that helps create an aura of power surrounding his image. 

While the Chinese regime’s program of financing and conducting large-scale infrastructure programs in Asia and Africa has been cited by Western observers as an attempt by the regime’s leadership to boost its geopolitical clout and strategic partnerships, a look at China’s history and domestic situation suggest a different primary motivation: class war.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The ironic thing about Michael Malice’s book The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics is that it mostly deals with the Left. What unites the Right, argues Malice, is that they all hate the Left. His definition of the New Right reads:

Ludwig von Mises rejects the standard arguments for democracy. Not for him are the alleged virtues of public deliberation. For him, there is only one argument for democracy that is convincing. He says that only democracy allows for a peaceful change of power. Every government, he thinks, rests on popular consent. If a sufficient number of people find the government no longer tolerable, it won’t be able to maintain itself in power. In a democracy, people in this situation can peacefully replace the government with an opposition party more to its liking.

Murray Rothbard’s theory of punishment has often been misunderstood. Economists who have written on punishment and mentioned Rothbard find his “double restitution” idea puzzling, because they think about it only in terms of economic efficiency. This isn’t what he has in mind. He is combining economics and moral philosophy.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

Former president Donald Trump has been impeached for “incitement to insurrection.” The House Democrats’ claim is that Trump made an inflammatory speech which—a week later—led to the Capitol riot of January 6.

The Senate is now considering whether or not to convict Trump of this “crime.”

I put “crime” in scare quotes for a couple of reasons.