A specter continues to haunt the world, the specter of Karl Marx. Two hundred years ago, on May 5, 1818, the father of twentieth century totalitarian communism, the guidebook writer of revolutionary mass-murdering dictatorship, and the inspirer of disastrous socialist central planning was born in Trier, Germany.
I have spent my whole adult life in the shadow of one man, Karl Marx.
By the age of 14, I recognized how important Marx was in history. I began to study some of his writings when I was a senior in high school. I continued to study him seriously in graduate school, and in 1968 my book on Marx was published.
One of the few positive things in the ill-named USA FREEDOM Act, enacted in 2015 after the Snowden revelations on NSA domestic spying, is that it required the Director of National Intelligence to regularly report on its domestic surveillance activities. On Friday, the latest report was released on just how much our own government is spying on us. The news is not good at all if you value freedom over tyranny.
Phew, the disaster is averted – at least for the time being. After Donald Trump threatened to not extend his tariff exemptions to the EU, the US administration announced last month that another one-month relief will be granted. The EU now has until June 1 to make concessions to the US, or else will face tariffs of 25 percent on steel and ten percent on aluminum.
Listen to Ryan McMaken’s commentary on the Radio Rothbard podcast.
Recently, two African-American men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia for trespass and disturbance. They claimed that they were waiting to meet a potential business partner. A barista asked if they wanted to order anything, but they declined. One of the men had asked to use the restroom, but was told it was for paying customers. One onlooker reported that a barista told the men that they needed to make a purchase or leave.
