Principle and Expediency: The State Department and Palestine, 1948

According to the conventional wisdom, the United Nations in effect established the state of Israel, doing so when the General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine in November of 1947. President Truman ardently and consistently believed in a Zionist state, and hence was taken aback when Warren R. Austin, American Ambassador to the Security Council, in March 1948 announced that the United States was abandoning partition and supporting a UN trusteeship.

Volume 2, Number 4 (1978)

Anarchy Revisited: An Inquiry into the Public Education Dilemma

This paper will be primarily concerned with identification and documentation of the educational viewpoints espoused by the European anarchists of the nineteenth century. A second section will highlight the ideas of two of the prominent contemporary opponents of public schooling, Ivan Illich and the late Paul Good- man. Following this, a third section will at- tempt to depict the commonalities between the European precursors and the contemporary “deschoolers”.

Volume 2, Number 4 (1978)

Monetary History of America to 1789: A Historiographical Essay

In no other field is the crucial importance of theory to history more obvious than in the field of economic history. One’s knowledge of the concrete historical events may remain unchanged, but if the economic theory applied to those events is altered, then one’s entire historical interpretation will of necessity be modified. A historical account can be factually accurate and yet, if the informing economic theory is faulty, give a totally false interpretation.

American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West

The growth of government during this century has attracted the attention of many scholars interested in explaining that growth and in proposing ways to limit it. As a result of this attention, the public choice literature has experienced an upsurge in the interest in anarchy and its implications for social organization.

Volume 3, Number 1 (1979)

The War for Southern Independence: A Radical Libertarian Perspective

This paper will present a radical libertarian analysis of the War of 1861-65; as such, it will disagree in many ways with existing interpretations. It will be frankly evaluative in libertarian terms and will not assume that things “had to” turn out just exactly as they did (pace the Locomotive of History). The discussion will be no more “presentist” than conventional viewpoints (with their tacit statist premises). But by starting from entirely opposed principles we will, it is hoped, contribute to the understanding of our common past.

The Reform Mentality, War, Peace, and the National State: From the progressives to Vietnam

That the modern reform mentality has been imbued with a statist philosophy leading to imperialism and war is perhaps no surprise to libertarians. They may not always be aware, however, of the extent to which a statist philosophy, vaguely Neo-Hegelian, has characterized both American reform movements and European social democracy. Indeed much of American reform. from the Progressive Era to the New Deal and after, in its program and development has been similar to European social democracy. It owes more to the European example than to previous reform movements in the United States.

The Early Development of Medical Licensing Laws in the United States 1875-1900

The condition of the American medical profession at the close of the Civil War was, in almost every particular, significantly different from that which obtains today. The profession was, throughout the country, unlicensed and anyone who had the inclination to set himself up as a physician could do so, the exigencies of the market alone determining who would prove successful in the field and who not. Medical schools abounded, the great bulk of which were privately owned and operated and the prospective student could gain admission to even the best of them without great difficulty.

The Lying Truths of Psychiatry

Of all the lying truths popular today, one of the most important is surely the mendacity inherent in the term “mental illness.” In addition to asserting a falsehood concealed as a truth, this term also generates and justifies a host of related mendacious propositions and deceitful practices.

Volume 3, Number 2 (1979)

In Defense of the Misesian Theory of Interest

The present article is a slightly expanded version of one of the critiques of Professor Laurence S. Moss’ paper directed against the theory of interest of Ludwig von Mises. As a means of abstraction, Moss discussed the economics of a pure exchange economy in terms of the allocation of consumer goods over time in a prisoner-of-war camp. His paper is thoroughly neoclassical rather than Austrian in substance and in form, and hence does not do justice to Mises’ theory of interest, which was developed within the context of his own praxeological framework of analysis.