[Libertarian Anarchy by Gerard Casey (Continuum, 2012)]

Methodological individualism is best known for its applications in economics, and its importance for historical analysis is often overlooked. The main significance for historical inquiry lies in rejecting the dominant discourse which explains historical events purely by reference to collective group identity such as race or class.

Long before the Blockchain Era, a landmark Scottish lawsuit posed a question that still echoes today: Can money carry memory—or must it forget? In 1748, Hew Crawfurd—a lawyer in Edinburgh—signed and recorded the serial numbers of two £20 notes before mailing them to a merchant in Glasgow. When the letter failed to arrive, Crawfurd notified the bank and publicized the theft. Months later, one note resurfaced at the Royal Bank’s office. In Crawfurd v.

Upon his elevation, the new pope announced that he had assumed the name of Leo XIV. For those familiar with Leo XIII, this was a signal that the principles of Leo XIII as expressed in his encyclical, Rerum Novarum, would play a major role in the new pontificate. Rerum Novarum is considered to be the Catholic Church’s foundation for social teaching.

In 1765, a writer at The Boston Gazette complained about the seemingly endless stream of protectionist laws imposed on the colonists by the British Empire:

A colonist cannot make a button, a horseshoe, nor a hobnail, but some sooty ironmonger or respectable button-maker of Britain shall bawl and squall that his honor’s worship is most egregiously maltreated, injured, cheated, and robbed by the rascally American republicans.