[Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory by Crispin Sartwell (SUNY Press, 2008; 123pp.)]

We often scoff at supposedly how cheap things cost in decades gone by. For example, my wife and I recently watched a stage play of Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, set in 1940’s America. (The lead character, Ralphie, wanted a Daisy Red Ryder Air Rifle, but all the adults warned him “you’ll shoot your eye out”). In the stage play, Ralphie’s dad complains to the mother that he had to buy a new car battery at the outrageous price of $6 dollars. This low price got a big laugh, as was intended.

After the failures of socialism—economically, historically, and ethically—the Left-liberal intellectuals, not wanting to abandon socialism, employed several new strategies. It has been suggested that these several manifestations can be subsumed under one general category—postmodernism.

[Editor’s note: Vilfredo Pareto is best known for his work as an economist. Pareto was not of the Austrian School, but Rothbard notes that Pareto was also a radical political theorist who was influenced by Gustave de Molinari and Herbert Spencer. As such, he is worth noting, especially for his excellent work on the “circulation of elites” and classical liberal exploitation theory. The text below is a minor text by Pareto, written for The Living Age in 1925 as part of a group of columns on the direction Europe was heading in the decade following the Great War.

“Let’s be clear: President Trump’s claim that the U.S. government collected $600 billion from tariffs in 2025 is incorrect,” The true amount is closer to $289 billion. 

The Monroe Doctrine occupies an unusual place in American political discourse. It is often invoked as though it announced a permanent rule of hemispheric governance, capable of being revived or enforced by later administrations. In contemporary usage, it is frequently treated as a declaration of American authority over the Western hemisphere or as a justification for intervention against foreign powers and regional governments. This understanding does not reflect the document as written, the circumstances that produced it, or the limits its authors assumed.

“If Donald Trump goes forward, the status of the US will go from adversary or rival to the one of enemy,” [French Prime Minister] Villepin stated. “It’ll be a huge historical change.”