Originally published September 1977 in Libertarian Review . In any debate between a socialist and a free-market capitalist, all too often the socialist quickly puts the free-market advocate on the defensive, and the entire time is consumed by the free-market person fending off attacks on the ability of the market to prevent inequality, or business
[ This originally appeared in Libertarian Review in November 1978 .] Libertarians surely favor freedom of speech, that is, the right to speak without being hampered by the government. But the right to speak implies the right not to speak, the right to remain silent. Yet libertarians have themselves been strangely silent on the many instances of
[Rothbard wrote this in 1950.] Whether the American war effort remains “partial” or eventually becomes “total,” methods of mobilization are rapidly becoming our most pressing economic problem. Obviously, mobilization for war inevitably involves hardships for the populace, and lowered standards of living for the duration of the war effort. The
[This article originally appeared in the publication New Libertarian in April 1985.] Since anarchists and other libertarians are, to say the least, an embattled minority, we have tended to be indulgent toward anyone and everyone in our ranks, even those who have been busily pecking away at the vitals of the libertarian position; Or, to change our
[From New Directions in Austrian Economics, edited with an introduction by Louis M. Spadaro (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel [1978]), pp. 143–56) and The Logic of Action I: Method, Money, the the Austrian School (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar and Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 1997), chap. 16, pp. 337–49. ] I. The Definition of the Supply of
The libertarian movement has been chided by William F. Buckley, Jr., for failing to use its “strategic intelligence” in facing the major problems of our time. We have, indeed, been too often prone to “pursue our busy little seminars on whether or not to demunicipalize the garbage collectors” (as Buckley has contemptuously written), while ignoring
Scientism and Values , Helmut Schoeck and James W. Wiggins, eds . (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand ), 1960; The Logic of Action One: Method, Money, and the Austrian School (Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar , 1997), pp .
Until a few years ago, the conservative spectrum could be comfortably sundered into the “traditionalists” at one pole, the “libertarians” at the other, and the “fusionists” as either judicious synthesizers or muddled moderates (depending on one’s point of view) in between. The traditionalists were, I contend, in favor of state-coerced morality;
The flat tax draws virtually unanimous support from the “right-thinking” intellectuals in our society, including academics, writers, and media pundits—all people who have managed successfully to identify their own views, whatever they may be, with the general welfare. Any policy that draws unanimous support from these people can’t be all good.
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.