Under the regime of the two-per-cent inflation standard, governments are levying a vast new tax. This shows up nowhere in public sector or private sector accounts and has so far created little if any resentment among those subject to its burden. Many live in the illusion that there is a continuing escape possible. This is a dream tax from the viewpoint of the collectors and their political masters.

Given that the American people have been inculcated with the notion that they are a free people who live under limited government, whatever the federal government does is considered part and parcel of a free society. Sometimes it’s helpful to examine what totalitarian regimes do in order to bring a sense of reality to Americans.

In the past two hundred years, technology has transformed the human environment more than in the thousand years before. Until 1840, more than 70 percent of the American work force were employed in agriculture, now it is less than 2 percent. The freed labor found employment first in the manufacturing sector and then in services. Now, with robotization, the speed of substituting labor through machines will accelerate and artificial intelligence will increasingly substitute labor in the service sector.

Was Mises for open borders, as the term currently is used?

With central banks globally once again suppressing the borrowing cost of sovereign entities to near zero rates, with yields in some countries even going negative, there is significant talk of issuing a 100-year bond to take advantage of these rates.

Investigative journalist Ida Tarbell published her book The History of the Standard Oil Company in 1904. In it she claimed that John D. Rockefeller’s business model of owning the entire line of production, thereby cutting out contractors and eliminating inefficiency, was essentially unfair and allowed “predatory pricing.” Since then, the US has suffered from a pathological fear of “big business.” The US’ anti-monopoly regulation, called “anti-trust” and rooted in the legislative reaction to Tarbell’s book, purportedly promotes healthy competition in a free society.

The socialist idea has many forms and flavors; however, one can observe three main paths toward socialism. They are the socialization of the means of production, wealth redistribution, and collectivization of consciousness. Different socialist movements use these three approaches to varying degrees.

Listen to the Radio Rothbard version of this article.

Keynes did not refute Say’s Law. He rejected it emotionally, but he did not advance a single tenable argument to invalidate its rationale.

- Ludwig von Mises, Planning for Freedom