In From Dawn to Decadence , Jacques Barzun maintained that separatism was the “strongest tendency” of the late twentieth century. He provided many illustrations that “the greatest political creation of the West, the nation-state, was stricken.” Among other examples, Barzun cited the efforts for more independence by the Basques, Brutons, and
In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a secret deal to invade and divide Poland between them. Proving there’s no honor among thieves, Nazi tanks bulldozed their way into the Soviet Union in June 1941. In no time at all, the rest of the world forgot about the alliance that started the war and “Uncle Joe” Stalin had become one of those Reds
President Bush is right to recognize the fruitful role of America’s private, faith-based “armies of compassion.” For many reasons, such groups are far more effective in solving social problems—poverty, homelessness, and illiteracy, to name a few—than are government programs and bureaucracies. They treat the whole person, which means they get to
The ideas of the economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.” Keynes was wise to include the phrase, “both when they are right and when they are wrong.” It’s all too true that good
Activists with the same agenda as anti-globalization rioters and eco-terrorists have set their sights on the nation’s business schools. According to an October 30 report in the Wall Street Journal (Alsop, Ronald. “Corporations Still Put Profits First, But Social Concerns Gain Ground.” The Wall Street Journal 30 Oct. 2001: B12) the World
Americans have been led to believe that when they celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday each year on February 12 they are celebrating freedom, the preservation of the union, and a reaffirmation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. This belief is a testament to the notion that in war the victors get to write the history. Lincoln
When I was a student at the Munich American High School and Cleveland’s John Adams High School, I studied American history and was taught what had been then and still seems to be the standard account of the American Civil War. My own children have received roughly the same instruction during their primary and secondary educations in Virginia,
In ancient times, the philosopher Aristotle championed a policy of moderation, by which he meant steering a path between two faulty extremes. For example, there is an alternative to acting cowardly and being rash, and that moderate position is the virtue of courage. This doctrine of the mean, as it came to be known, is the core of ancient ethical
Let us examine the tragic story out of Florida of the young boy whose arm was severed by a shark and then reattached, after the shark was killed by a ranger. MSNBC describes the dramatic events: Jessie was attacked by a seven-foot bull shark while playing knee-deep in water at Gulf Islands National Seashore near Fort Pickens, in the Florida
We’ve all listened to the incessant criminalizing of SUVs and of those who have a fondness for driving them. The anti-SUV crowd is led by the maniacal green people, though they are joined by the carpool fanciers and the general collectivist rank-and-file that despises anything remotely resembling status or success. And, let’s face it, an imposing
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.