Patrick Buchanan is an informative and interesting writer. On foreign policy, especially, he’s long been one of the most reasonable voices among high-level American pundits.

When it comes to cultural matters, however, Buchanan has long held to a peculiar and empirically questionable version of American history in which the United States was once a mono-culture in which everyone was once happily united by “a common religion,” a “common language,” and a “common culture.”

A few months before the 2016 election, the Obama administration was claiming that the federal government needed to seize control of the election process because, according to CNN ”Vladimir Putin’s hackers could wreak havoc” on the electoral process.

[A selection from an interview by Brian Doherty which appeared in the May 12, 1999 issue of SpintechMag.com as “Libertarianism and the Old Right.” Re-published in 2003 as part of Speaking of Liberty, a collection of interviews and speeches by Lew Rockwell.]

Brian Doherty: What was the genesis of the Mises Institute? How difficult was it to get off the ground?

The chief root of our present monetary troubles is, of course, the sanction of scientific authority which Lord Keynes and his disciples have given to the age-old superstition that by increasing the aggregate of money expenditure we can lastingly ensure prosperity and full employment.

“You just follow the money. What happens is that you’re faced with a situation of shooting somewhere you want to shoot, versus somewhere you’d less rather shoot — and you get an extra three weeks of filming. It comes down to the fact that you have x amount of money to make your movie in a business where margins are really thin.” — Ben Affleck, on making films in Georgia over Hollywood, CA.

Many moons ago, I wrote a piece for mises.org introducing Westley’s Law, which was my theory for government growth based on its being held to lower expectations, relative to the market. It struck a nerve, of sorts. Many emailed me to say the idea required expansion into a book.

Monetary calculation is the guiding star of action under the social system of division of labor.

As Independence Day comes around again we should spend a few moments between barbecue and fireworks to think about the meaning of independence. The colonists who rebelled against the British Crown were, among other things, unhappy about taxation. Yet, as economist Gary North points out, the total burden of British imperial taxation was about one-to-two percent of national income.

[First published by Rare, July 1, 2017]

Speaking in London, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen Tuesday predicted that the “the system is much safer and much sounder” and explained that the Federal Reserve is prepared to deal with numerous enormous shocks to the economy.