In this article, Professor Robert P. Murphey offers a review of Butler Shaffer’s In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition.
What should be the attitude of classical liberals toward nationalist aspiration and sentiment? Should classical liberals value and cultivate these attitudes in themselves and others—at least in their ostensibly less xenophobic and aggressive forms? Or should they look on all forms and manifestations of nationalism as nothing more than atavistic remnants of pre-modernity? That is, should nationalism be viewed as an outmoded form of attachment which, ideally, should be expunged from humanity?
Originally published as “European Unification as the New Frontier of Collectivism: The Case for Competitive Federalism and Polycentric Law.”
The European Union is a continental movement with an American pedigree. The phenomena of European “integration” and “harmonization” (innocuous terms for a pernicious enterprise) re-enact the evolution of the American Union: the judicial conversion of sovereign states into municipalities and, concomitantly, the homogenization-centralization of political life by a stratified agent turned superior. The commonalities between the American and European unions reflect the recurrent dynamics by which autonomy is undermined.
Since the end of the Second World War, the issue of European integration has taken on ever-greater economic and political importance. Upon communism’s collapse in Eastern and Central Europe, a special new dimension was added to the process. The idea of building a united and integrated Europe by abolishing artificial state frontiers and creating conditions under which Europeans might live peaceful, happy lives remains attractive.
The problem, however, is that the Europe now emerging is far removed from this grand and noble idea.
In this article, Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe discusses immigration, natural order, and private property.
In this article, Gabriel Calzada Álvarez offers a review of Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.
In this article, Robert P. Murphy reviews Leland B. Yeager’s Ethics as Social Science: The Moral Philosophy of Social Cooperation.
The War Between the States has been a source of controversy for some time among libertarians. Since the libertarian position acknowledges a right of secession, many libertarians have opposed Lincoln and sided with the South, at least on its right to withdraw peacefully from the Union. Others, however, appalled at the Southern slave system, have identified the Northern cause as the libertarian one.
This article will describe the series of events that launched John C. Calhoun down the path from apostle of nationalism to increasingly angry prophet (not to say advocate) of disunion.
