In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. —George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946 Language is at the core of everything we perceive, know, think, and express. We use words as a tool, to communicate and navigate life in a social context. We use them at every stage of cognition, from our
Language is the perfect instrument of empire. —Antonio de Nebrija, Bishop of Ávila, 1492 Language is an institution in society. In both its oral and written forms, language functions as a mechanism for communication and as a cognitive tool. But language serves much broader societal and even civilizational functions. Like any institution, it
The Conservative Affirmation By Willmoore Kendall Regnery, 2022 (Originally published in 1963) lxix + 362 pp. Willmoore Kendall was the most important political theorist of the brand of conservatism associated with William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review during the 1950s and 1960s. To some of us, this will be not altogether a positive
The international system we live in today is a system composed of numerous states. There are, in fact, about two hundred of them, most of which exercise a substantial amount of autonomy and sovereignty. They are functionally independent states. Moreover, the number of sovereign states in the world has nearly tripled since 1945. Because of this,
Does cheap money and credit make us richer? Does more money and credit create more stuff, or better stuff? Do they make us happier and more productive? Or do these twin forces actually distort the economy, misallocate resources, and degrade us as people? These are fundamental questions in an age of monetary hedonism. It is time we began to ask and
Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States By Arthur B. Laffer, Brian Domitrovic, and Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield Post Hill Press, 2022, xxv + 413 pp. Taxes Have Consequences is a good book that could have been better. The authors are leading defenders of “supply side” economics, which attracted much attention during the
The value of time, i.e., time preference or the higher valuation of want-satisfaction in nearer periods of the future as against that in remoter periods, is an essential element in human action. It determines every choice and every action. There is no man for whom the difference between sooner and later does not count. The time element is
Jeff Deist : Alex Epstein is our special guest this week. He runs the Center for Industrial Progress, was formerly at the Ayn Rand Institute, and has a background in philosophy. He wrote a famous book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels , and followed that up with a new book called Fossil Future . Alex, let me say this book is incredible. Thank
Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less By Alex Epstein Portfolio 2022 xii + 468 pp. In his remarkable new book, Alex Epstein has changed the terms of the debate about the danger of “global warming” and the alleged need to take drastic action in response to this. One side assures us that we
David French, maybe National Review ’s most reliably wrong scribe, issued this gem in response to the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s residence in Florida: Imagine thinking federal police agents and lawyers will be “held accountable,” or that presidents are not above the law! Is this an afterschool special? “Let’s wait and see, folks, before we judge
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.