Most commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—which overturns Roe v. Wade—has focused on the decision’s effect on the legality of abortion in various states. That’s an important issue. It may be, however, that the Dobbs decision’s effect on political decentralization in the United States is a far bigger deal.

Two years before the end of the Revolutionary War on March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation were officially put into effect. While the articles still established a small national government, there were a decentralizing document that put more power in the hands of individual states. There was no national currency, Congress could not collect taxes from the states, Congress could not draft soldiers, and Congress could not control commerce between the states.

The European Central Bank (ECB) informed, in June, that Croatia fulfills the requirements and can join the euro on January 1st, 2023. If this happens, Croatia will be the 20th member of the European Union (EU) to be part of the single currency.

People usually don’t study the philosopher George Santayana very much today, and he was not a libertarian, but rather a “skeptical conservative.” Ludwig von Mises took him seriously, though, and often quotes him, though sometimes to disagree; and in this week’s article, I’d like to look at what he says about the state in Human Society, the second volume of his five-volume work The Life of Reason.