“Adhere to principle, even if only to bug those who hate you for your principles!”

Virtually every opponent of big government concedes his opponent’s good intentions. But why? The destructive effects of foreign and domestic intervention are so clear that statists must be motivated, at least in part, by malice.

Communists, everyone would concede, were full of envy and hatred for the bourgeoisie. The gulag satisfied this in part. But what about the garden-variety welfare statist?

The Kelo decision, in which the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case of a local government taking of private property, touched off a huge debate among libertarians on the question of decentralization.

The most common perspective was that the decision was a disaster because it gave permission to local governments to steal land. Libertarians are against stealing land, and so therefore must oppose the court decision.

When a famous conservative told me ten years ago that “the United States is too big,” and only “breaking it up into 35 different countries” would preserve a free and decent society, I was shocked. Today, leaving aside the exact number of successor states, I wonder if he wasn’t right.

How can one combine professional life with the advancement of liberty? Of course it is presumptuous to offer a definitive answer since all jobs and careers in the market economy are subject to the forces of the division of labor. Because a person focuses on one task doesn’t mean that he or she isn’t great at many tasks; it means only that the highest productive gains for everyone come from dividing tasks up among many people of a wide range of talents.

Government is once again the Grinch stealing Christmas, with family income still in long-term decline. But this year, the government’s tight control of the economy, its blunt attacks on our liberties, and its appetite for power have everyone up in arms, sometimes literally.

But wasn’t the 103rd Congress a “failure” because it didn’t pass enough legislation? If only.

Defenders of liberty are prone to despair, perhaps always, and certainly since the end of the eighteenth century, when the hopes of the last Enlightenment generation were dashed as the French Revolution descended into tyranny and war, and the American Revolution was betrayed by a centralizing coup against the Articles of Confederation.

The Mises Institute has worked for more than two decades to advance one purpose: the cause of economic freedom in academia and public life. The two comments on our work that I hear most often are: (1) you guys are doing a great job, and (2) it is not working.

As the war drags on and the state expands its reach in nearly every area of life, I’m detecting another moment of despair sweeping through libertarian ranks. Why aren’t all our efforts making a difference? What are we doing wrong? Are we just wasting our time with our publications, conferences, scholarships, editorials, vast web presence, recruitments of thousands of young people? Have our educational efforts ever made any difference?

INDEX

A|  B  |  C  |  D  |  E
F  |  G  |  H  |  I  |  J
K  |  L  |  M  |  N  |  O
P  |  Q  |  R  |  S  |  T
U  |  V  |  W  |  Y

A

9–11. See September 11