The State versus Liberty

The Nature of the State

So far in this book, we have developed a theory of liberty and property rights, and have outlined the legal code that would be necessary to defend those rights. What of government, the State? What is its proper role, if any?

Most people, including most political theorists, believe that once one concedes the importance, or even the vital necessity, of some particular activity of the State—such as the provision of a legal code—that one has ipso facto conceded the necessity of the State itself.

Three National Treasures: Hazlitt, Hutt, and Rothbard

There is a Japanese custom naming great achievers as living national treasures. In an article from 1986, Lew Rockwell wrote that there were three then living: Henry Hazlitt, W.H. Hutt, and Murray N. Rothbard. To most Americans, economists don’t leap instantly to mind as treasures, let alone national treasures. Whether making arrogant and fallacious mathematical predictions, filling the minds of college students with the wrong-headed Keynesian and socialist ideas, or giving a theoretical cover to state inflation, taxation, regulation, and spending — the typical economist is not a friend of liberty.

Spiderman: A Class Act

The skinny on Spiderman 2 is that this is a movie that even movie snobs can love, and there’s certain truth in this view. Its characters are more introspective and thoughtful than other superhero fare, and its social-critical undercurrent isn’t overtly political enough to become annoying, writes Jeffrey Tucker.

Spidey’s Forgotten World

Jeffrey Tucker writes of an unexpected pleasure that comes from watching any Spider-Man movie, and the new release of the third is no exception. It allows the viewer to be a voyeur of the workings of a largely abandoned ideology, the perspective of the old, old Left. The film, and the ideological structure of Spiderman’s world, not only shows us how wrong the left was way back then; it reveals just how much the class-conflict view of economics has had to adjust in order to stay viable at all.

Who Would the Founders Endorse?

The 2008 presidential campaign has been going on for months, even though we are far from the end of 2007. But all that really gets discussed are the horserace details — who is ahead, who is raising more money, how badly will a particular scandal or issue hurt a candidate, etc. Unfortunately, that approach, which dominates the media, is a horribly inadequate way to go about selecting the person who will fill America’s highest constitutional office.

The Scandalous Student Loan Scandal

The student loan scandal concerns the fact that many colleges and universities chose preferred lenders for financing student loans and then received remuneration for their recommendations from the lenders. The scandal has been going on since mid-March. Thus, it is startling to learn that it was not until April 30 that any evidence was provided concerning how anyone might have been harmed by the practice.

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