The Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq provides one further confirmation, if any were needed, of Randolph Bourne’s dictum, “war is the health of the state.” Faced with so massive an instance of aggression, the question arises: can we do without the state altogether? Its elimination would end the principal source of destructive violence in the world.
Vincent Carroll of the Denver Post heard Obama speak of people who believe in completely unfettered markets, and went seeking such people. He couldn’t find them in any of the usual places, but he finally found one at the Mises Institute. You really must read Doug French’s comment. Don’t want to spoil it.
One sensible voice out there
In the literature of the American Revolution there is no demagogic attempt to set human rights against property rights. It is recognized that the right to acquire and own property is a basic and very important human right
The market economy as a field of liberty, spontaneity, and free coordination cannot thrive in a social system that is the very opposite.
The reader of this, the second volume1 of Rothbard’s last great work, will at once face a puzzle: how was one person able to unify so vast a mass of material into a tightly organized narrative? I cannot pretend to provide a full answer, but one part of the solution lies in the fact that Rothbard follows a few main themes with iron consistency.
[Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics • By George Reisman • Jameson Books, 1998 • l + 1046 pages]
