I’d like to consider some criticisms of anarcho-capitalist theories of property acquisition raised by Jesse Spafford in his article “Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Private Property,” included in The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought , edited by Gary Chartier and Chad Van Schoelandt (Routledge, 2021). Spafford, a research
Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom was a bestseller when it was published in 1944, and it has remained ever since one of the classic works in the literature of liberty. Many people, though, find it hard to understand. After Glenn Beck featured the book on his television show in 2010, resulting in a surge in demand for it, one noted speaker at
Several months ago, I debated Thaddeus Russell on The Tom Woods Show . The proposition debated was “Postmodern philosophy is compatible with a politics of individual liberty.” Thaddeus defended the proposition and I opposed it. Here, I want to flesh out some of the points I made in the debate, adding more context than I could marshal under the
In the previous installments of this series ( part I , part II ), I have argued that government default is not only ethical, it is also beneficial to the economy and society as a whole. The one question I left open at the end of part II was the possible consequences for financial markets and the monetary system in the case of a government default.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) embodies a political trend that cripples human rights in the guise of crusading for them. This trend is the balkanization, or fragmentation, of rights. Recently passed by the House, VAWA has moved to the Senate, where the trend it represents may well be translated into more law. Identity politics and its
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Many people think that a universal basic income (UBI) would be a good substitute for the welfare state. Under this proposal, each person resident in a country would receive a guaranteed income, sufficient to live at a modest level. People would get the money unconditionally. Unlike
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. March 31 gave us a statement on the American Jobs Plan, and April 28 saw President Joe Biden speak on it to the American people (well, roughly 8 percent of the American people ). The goal of the law is the following : While the American Rescue Plan is changing the course of the pandemic
Is Babbittry alive and well in twenty-first-century America? George F. Babbitt is novelist Sinclair Lewis’s protagonist in the novel of the same name. Babbitt is a real estate man, which is to say a salesman, but the newfangled 1920s term is “Realtor ™. “ Incurious, smug, self-satisfied, and utterly predictable, Babbitt is well pleased with his
The “transitory” inflation swamping the country has stubbornly persisted into July. Producer prices posted a second straight 1 percent month-over-month increase , which brought the full-year number to a record 7.8 percent. Twelve-month US export prices rose 17.2 percent, and nearly 22 percent if the rate of the first seven months of 2021 were
Some of you may know the name Alex Berenson, the former New York Times journalist who comes from a left-liberal background. He has been absolutely fearless and tireless on Twitter over the past eighteen months, documenting the overreach and folly of covid policy—and the mixed reality behind official assurances on everything from social
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.