Join the Revolution in Ideas

A dramatic change in the political and social landscape can happen nearly overnight. When does it happen? When the ideological conditions are right. At that point, writes Lew Rockwell, no power on earth can stop it. What is seen is the upheaval. What is unseen is the long work of preparation. That preparation is everyone’s job. You can assist us in doing ours. Please support the Mises Institute with a year-end contribution.

Standards of Environmental Good and Evil: Why Environmentalism Is Misanthropic

It is very common for people to talk nowadays about environmental good and evil, but with virtually no explicit statement of the standards by which something is to be judged environmentally good or evil. People are unaware that a standard is always present and that there is more than one such standard. There are in fact two diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive standards of environmental good and evil. The following example will bring them out.

“Mission Accomplished” & the Inverted Yield Curve

In a speech entitled — with breathtaking hubris — “The Worldwide Conquest of Inflation”, the neophyte Fed Governor Randall Kroszner quotes Hayek’s proposals for currency ‘denationalization’ as support for his thesis that competition between fiat currencies has somehow encouraged a ‘race to the top’ among them, thus retarding the ongoing debasement of our monies.

Our Favorite Killer for the State

As the much-anticipated Casino Royale opens today, I wonder why it is that many libertarians — perhaps even a disproportionate percentage — like James Bond so much, even though he’s a cold-blooded killer for the state?

Some of us may have gotten started with Bond because Ian Fleming was one of the few twentieth-century authors other than herself whom Ayn Rand could endorse. Or maybe it’s for the reasons Murray Rothbard stated in his Libertarian Forum review of Live and Let Die:

Milton Friedman RIP

Milton Friedman died today at age 94. May he rest in peace. Libertarians have long disagreed with him on a range of issues, writes Walter Block, and this is not the time to delve into such longstanding controversies:”Instead, I wish to focus on the positive, and to relate a few personal experiences I have had with him.”

John Bright’s Birthday

The just-completed midterm elections giving Democrats control of both houses of Congress are being interpreted as a referendum on Iraq. Yet once the results were in, the same party that opposed the use of American force in Iraq immediately proposed to use more force on Americans. After all, the only way to impose higher tax rates, higher minimum wages, added regulations and more trade restrictions is to threaten force against those who disagree.

Give Me Vodka or Give Me Death

Last year Russian President Putin called for a state monopoly on vodka, writes Mihai Sarbu, to address what many consider to be a serious health crisis. He estimated that some 40,000 deaths annually can be attributed to various illegal products sold as vodka. Now, in late 2006, the situation is even grimmer. The local black market is alive and well. Authorities are constantly battling the illegal production of vodka, while the quality of this counterfeit product plummets ever lower. Illegal traders are putting additives in drinks to make them stronger and cheaper, but the result is often lethal. These additives may include cleaners, car-window deicers, and chemicals used for removing rust.