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.

A lecture delivered at the Gold and Monetary Conference, New Orleans, La., November 10, 1977, by F.A. Hayek on more efficient monetary systems.

Volume 3, Number 1 (1979)

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)

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.

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 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.

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)

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.

A major point of dispute among libertarian theorists and thinkers today as always revolves around the age-old question of whether man can live in total anarchy or whether the minimal state is absolutely necessary for the maximization of freedom. Lost in this dispute is the question of whether man is capable of getting out of anarchy at all.

The original version of this paper was delivered at the Sixth Annual Libertarian Scholars Conference, held in October 1978 at Princeton University, by Henry B. Veatch.

Volume 3, Number 2 (1979)