Isaac M. Morehouse**

Chapter 29 of Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise; “The Future”.

Volume 2, Article 35 (2010)

The question of what leads to or makes up a flourishing and happy human life has been debated throughout the entire history of political and moral philosophy and, more recently, in the social sciences such as economics1 and positive psychology.

Volume 3, Article 5 (2011)

In Atlas Shrugged (1957), Ayn Rand presents her original, brilliant, and controversial philosophy of Objectivism in dramatized form.2 More than a great novel, it expounds a radically new philosophy with amazing clarity.

      In the ninety-six years since its founding, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) has never been so daring, aggressive, or ground-breaking in its policymaking as it has in response to the current financial crisis brought upon by the collapse of the U.S. housing market. The Fed has slashed the interest rates under its control to practically zero, provided funds more freely and lavishly than ever before to a greater range of financial institutions and players, in addition to expanding swap lines with other central banks in order to inject liquidity into U.S.

     WE MIGHT BELIEVE THAT there are no conceivable conditions under which the state is legitimate. Alternatively, we might believe that there are such conditions, but deny that they actually obtain. The difference between these two forms of anarchism is important. The classical formulation of libertarianism would seem to entail the first form. Section I of this article argues that this fact alone would constitute a serious objection against its plausibility.

     In “Why Libertarians Should Reject Positive Rights,”1 Joshua Katz offers a critical response to the argument I develop in “Libertarianism and the Possibility of the Legitimate State.” Although Katz raises some interesting points regarding the limits of a particular line of argumentation that can be found in that article, I think his resp

Introduction

     In “Why Libertarians Should Believe in Positive Rights” (presented at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2006)1 Nico Maloberti offers a reformulation of libertarianism that does not preclude the possibility, in principle, of a legitimate state.

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“Para mí, los estados, son producto de las fantasías de los hombres. ¿Cómo explicar de otro modo que al sur de una línea la tierra cambie de nombre?”

—Jorge Luis Borges (1978)1

Introduction

     Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942) is a classic in the history of economic and political thought. It is probably the best known of Joseph Schumpeter’s contributions to political economy. The book earned its well-deserved fame not only for its well known thesis of the demise of capitalism, but also for its warning that socialism would probably be its successor.