Anarchists are constantly tempted to respond to their critics in a way that verges on the tu quoque fallacy — in children’s playground lingo, “it takes one to know one” — because often a critic’s claim about the horrors that anarchy would bring is essentially a claim that it would bring about a condition that already exists under the rule of
Many of my friends think of the state as stupid, and therefore an easy foe for determined dissidents to defeat. I have a different view. For one thing, the state has always had ready resort to those with cutting-edge expertise in the private sector, from the days when it hired Eli Whitney to manufacture muskets with interchangeable parts to our
Although the statement is commonly attributed to Mark Twain, his friend Charles Dudley Warner was the one who said, “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Regardless of who said it, the statement was and remains fairly accurate. In contrast, we might observe, “Everybody complains about the economy, and a
The Dallas Fed distributes a bi-monthly publication called Southwest Economy. Opening the latest one to appear in my mailbox, for January/February 2006, I began to read the “President’s Perspective,” by the bank’s president Richard W. Fisher, on p. 2. After a couple foggy paragraphs about globalization, its effects, and the new questions it
Anyone who has followed the literature of economics knows that articles in the professional journals tend to take a standard form. If the article is purely theoretical, the setup will be something like: introduction, literature, model, and policy implications. If the article is empirical, it will go something like: introduction, literature, model,
The July 2006 issue of Imprimis , a widely circulated monthly publication of Hillsdale College, contains an interview with Milton Friedman that took place on May 22, 2006, in connection with a seminar celebrating the 25th anniversary of Milton and Rose Friedman’s book Free to Choose. In responding to a question about whether “our government has
What are environmental forensics and why did the market develop this sector to uphold property rights? How did the government directly legalize acts of trespassing? During the 19th century the State trumped property rights in favor of State growth, Block elaborates on this and answers the questions above. Dr. Block covers much more in this
The philosophical and legal foundation of the U.S. government (and some other governments) is that government officials are the agents of the citizens—in the familiar phrase, those who govern have the “consent of the governed.” An agent, of course, is someone I authorize to act on my behalf. For a host of reasons, this doctrine has always been
Here is a note that I wrote Guido Hulsmann, author of Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism : I have finally finished reading your great book about Mises. When I use the word “great,” I mean not simply that it weighs at least a kilo and contains more than 1,000 pages. I mean most of all that it is a magnificent scholarly achievement. I can’t
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.