I’m a fan of much of Pat Buchanan’s “America First” foreign policy writings in which he expresses the supposedly outrageous idea that the purpose of the national defense establishment should be to defend against foreign aggressors, and not be the aggressor. Defense, not offense. But his “America First” economic writings in defense of protectionism are completely wrongheaded, and often historically inaccurate.
Earlier this year, a number of Uber cars in Poland came under attack by a group of vandals who were likely taxi drivers. In general, these types of vandalism have a long tradition in human history and have contributed to keeping populations’ general living standards at very low levels.
Recently, Hillary Clinton was taped ridiculing Donald Trump for lacking a detailed plan for the American economy. The message, so it goes, is that Trump is not suited for the presidency because he doesn’t have a plan on how to turn the American economy around.
But is it really more dangerous to elect a president who makes up economic policy on the fly than one who proclaims to have a detailed plan for us?
At the Mises Institute, we don’t support particular candidates for office or legislative policy proposals. We’re primarily interested in ideas and education. And many of our most ardent supporters don’t believe in voting or political activism at all (although no less than Walter Block does). But like Murray Rothbard, we of course maintain a “rooting interest” in seeing the most libertarian (i.e least statist) candidates prevail.
We at the Mises Institute wish all a happy Memorial Weekend, hopefully free from the horrors of the TSA.
The current tempest in a teapot among the “rights” advocates is that no one should be restricted from using the gender specific bathroom of his choice. The “rights” advocates want to use the police power of the state to ensure this outcome. The federal government has come down on the side of the “rights” advocates, with regional and local governments sometimes taking the opposite side.
From time to time over the last thirty years, after I have talked or written about some new restriction on human liberty in the economic field, some new attack on private enterprise, I have been asked in person or received a letter asking, “What can I do” — to fight the inflationist or socialist trend? Other writers or lecturers, I find, are often asked the same question.
It looks like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are planning to debate each other. Drudge today is calling it “the debate of the century.”
In 2012, Barack Obama warned that the United States would fall into a depression if Ron Paul’s plan to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget were enacted.
Wait, I beg your pardon. It wasn’t Obama who warned that budget cuts would lead to a depression.
It was Mitt Romney.
Romney went on to become the nominee of the self-described free-market party.
An ideological rout is complete when both sides of respectable opinion take its basic ideas for granted. That’s how complete the Keynesian victory has been.
