Felix Morley once called federalism “the distinctively American contribution to political art,” because of its potential to limit government’s ability to harm its citizens. Retaining powers not delegated to the federal government in the hands of individuals and states enabled easier escape from abusive government by “voting with their feet” for jurisdictions with less hostile governance, setting a tighter limit on government’s ability to impose burdens that outweighed benefits.

Nothing illustrates the demand for America more than the wave of immigrants risking their safety to enter its shores. Readers are fed a daily diet of negative stories about America’s impending collapse; however, alarmist tendencies conceal the complexity of the American experience. America excels at attracting citizens from across the globe due to its superb ability to mobilize resources and institutions to support individual achievement.

The economic burden of inflation continues to ravage economies around the world. From the US to the UK to the eurozone, people are finding that the money in their wallets and bank accounts buys less and less every month. As with all problems, everyone is looking for three things: strategies, solutions, and scapegoats.

Murray Rothbard explained in Man, Economy, and State that praxeology is the “general, formal theory of human action” and that economics is the only subdivision of knowledge to have been fully elaborated by praxeological methods. However, he contended that those methods could be applied to other fields of study as well. Law, or legal theory, is perhaps one such field.

Matt McManus, a lecturer at the University of Michigan, has published in Jacobin an article under the less-than-engaging title “Ludwig von Mises Was a Free-Market Ideologue, Not a Hardheaded Thinker.” In the article, McManus raises some points of philosophical interest, but unfortunately his evident animus against Mises interferes with his understanding, sometimes to the point of outright distortion.

[The following is excerpted from remarks made at the Arizona Biltmore hotel this past weekend during the 2022 Mises Institute Supporters Summit]

Mainstream analysts seem convinced that global central banks are moving aggressively to tackle inflation, maybe even going too far. After having believed until recently that the spike in prices was only transitionary, central banks insist now that they will restore price stability at almost any cost. In September, the Fed raised its main interest rate to a range between 3 and 3.25 percent from close to zero at the beginning of the year.