The fateful error that frustrated all the endeavors to safeguard peace was precisely that people did not grasp the fact that only within a world of pure, perfect, and unhampered capitalism are there no incentives for aggression and

Here is the pot finding a world strewn with black kettles: 2004 National Trade Estimate on Foreign Trade Barriers from the USTR, which is all for other governments giving their citizens the right to buy US products, but does not favor unlimited rights for Americans to buy foreign products, as this EU report points out. As a rule, every bad thing one government says about another is true.

In India, techies live like maharajahs. (Link courtesy of George Natalino)

Well-intentioned or not, it is simply fallacious to deem government construction projects or social programmes as productive “investments”. As the only entities in society — besides criminals — that exist through the involuntary exaction of private property, governments rely on compulsion to achieve their ends. Unlike private enterprises, politicians are immune from profits and losses; it is immaterial whether they are servicing the public as revenues can always be coerced from the populace.

This piece from the Economic Times of India, though an April Fools’ Spoof, is a classic!:

The Iraq disaster is more obvious and undeniable than ever, yet everyone is trying to avoid taking responsibility for the fiasco. Politicians are trying to account for their votes for the war. Bureaucrats are offering excuses for staying silent. Warmongers are elucidating all the reasons why others foiled their plans. In the same way that 13 months ago, elites would say anything to make a case for war, at this point in a failed war, people are grabbing at anything to evade responsibility for it. [More]

Fifty years ago, a remarkable libertarian, personal friend, witty Georgite, then editor of Human Events, came out with a landmark book, The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (text and PDF). Its author was Frank Chodorov who saw raging about him—what’s new?—interventionism, welfarism, political mischief and corruption galore, an ongoing mangling of the limited government model of the Founding Fathers.

In the spring of each leap year, we have a predictable—if tiresome—dog-and-pony show: the candidates for President of the United States denounce the newest gasoline price increases. We lived through this political purgatory four years ago, and it looks as though we will experience it again.

A student recently asked me what was known of “Rothbard’s opinion on the events of early May, 1968 in France.” I turned to Joe Stromberg, Jedi Master of the Rothbard Archives, who kindly dug out for me two columns Rothbard wrote for the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph in 1968: “The Student Revolution” and “French Revolution – 1968.” For anyone curious about the results, here’s a brief summary: