Seemingly coming out of nowhere was the song “Rich Men North of Richmond,” by singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony. Overnight, the laments of one man from Appalachia over the state of the American economy and government spread like wildfire.

It’s difficult to go very far these days without tripping over the state with its voluminous laws, regulations, departments, and agencies. The last few decades, and indeed the last few centuries, have seen the continual expansion of states into more and more aspects of our lives with both the left and right of politics having their own grand visions for its development. But is the state really the institution we ought to be banking on for our future, or is it time to consider how we can organize and solve problems without it?

It is 2023, eight years after 2015, the year of flying cars and climate-controlled clothing that Marty McFly traveled to in a time machine. In our own world, the ruling elite wants to ban cars to control the climate. How did we get here? What caused the discrepancy between our vision of a more advanced future and the reality we face now?

One of the most eventful things to have happened recently was from an unexpected source. The State Department and the intelligence apparatus didn’t initiate any coups somewhere in the Third World, the Kremlin didn’t launch a blitzkrieg and capture Kiev, and a currency from the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) hasn’t entered circulation yet.

Last week, prosecutors for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against New Jersey senator Robert Menendez. The senator, his wife, and several businessmen are accused of providing “sensitive U.S. Government information” and taking steps that “secretly aided the Government of Egypt” in exchange for cash, gold bars, a luxury convertible, and more.

Libertarian Autobiographies, edited by Jo Ann Cavallo and Walter Block, delves into the trials, tribulations, intellectual formation, and accomplishments of 80 libertarians from around the world—in their own words! The following is an amended excerpt from the introduction written by the co-editors:

If we search the news from 2007, we can find plenty of headlines with the IMF and the Federal Reserve predicting a soft landing. No one seemed to worry about rising imbalances. The main reason is that market participants and economists like to believe that the central bank will manage the economy as if it were a car. The current optimism about the U.S. economy reminds us of the same sentiment in 2007.