Some of you may remember a British television show from the 1980s, Yes, Prime Minister. It was (and is) a delightfully funny look at all the problems both of bureaucracy and of (especially democratic) government in general. After a twenty-year hiatus, the creative minds behind the original show, writers Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, have reunited to bring Yes, Prime Minister to the stage. I recently had the pleasure of seeing the new play at the Gielgud Theatre in London, and I can say that the liberty-minded will find it quite appealing.

Over at Northwood University’s ‘s blog, “In Defense of Capitalism & Human Progress,” I have posted, “Austrian Economics versus the Mainstream: An Interview with Richard M. Ebeling.”

World Bank president Robert Zoellick has stirred up a hornet’s nest with his recent call for a return to a gold anchor1 in the global financial system.

Some years ago, I was watching and listening to a communist poetry/rap group in a public park and rather enjoying the spirited rhythmic presentation. Hundreds of people were enjoying it too. The message was goofy but harmless in some way, essentially a bunch of tuneful hectoring on how we need to come together and share and be one, etc. At some point, the lead singer said that the best path to utopia was a direct one. We should throw away our cell phones! Well, at that point, the crowds lost interest and drifted away.

The most spectacular episode of Harry Truman’s presidency will never be forgotten but will be forever linked to his name: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and of Nagasaki three days later. Probably around two hundred thousand persons were killed in the attacks and through radiation poisoning; the vast majority were civilians, including several thousand Korean workers.

[This article is excerpted from The Rise and Fall of Society (1959). An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Keith Hocker, is available for download.]

[From The Rise and Fall of Society]

It is not incumbent on a diagnostician to prescribe a remedy, and it would be quackery for him to do so when he has misgivings as to its curative value. It may be that the struggle between Society and the State is inevitable; it may be in the nature of things for the struggle to continue until mutual destruction clears the ground for the emergence of a new Society, to which a new political establishment attaches itself to effect a new doom.