[ Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament: Essays 2002–2008 • By Thomas Nagel • Oxford, 2010 • 171 pages] Thomas Nagel has a remarkable ability to penetrate to the essence of important issues; and this collection of his recent essays and reviews displays his characteristic depth. I should like to concentrate first on “The Problem of
G.A. Cohen, who retired last year from Oxford, died on August 5. Although he was a Marxist, he took libertarian ideas with great seriousness; and his efforts to come to grips with the self-ownership principle merit careful study. I rate him one of the best philosophers of the past fifty years. He was extraordinarily sharp in argument but, at least
Mises Review 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) FREE MARKET MADNESS: WHY HUMAN NATURE IS AT ODDS WITH ECONOMICS — AND WHY IT MATTERS Peter A. Ubel Harvard Business Press, 2009, xiv + 257 pgs. Peter Ubel has written an informative and useful book, but not entirely for the reasons he thinks. He presents a very well-written and easy-to-understand account of
Mises Review 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) MARXISM UNMASKED: FROM DELUSION TO DESTRUCTION Ludwig von Mises Introduction by Richard M. Ebeling Foundation for Economic Education, 2006, xvii + 110 pgs. In June and July 1952, Ludwig von Mises delivered nine lectures in San Francisco on Marxism and capitalism. Bettina Greaves transcribed these lectures,
Volume 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD Fareed Zakaria Norton, 2008, 292 pages Fareed Zakaria poses a fundamental question. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, America has dominated the world. How long can we remain in this position? Zakaria foresees an end to our dominance, as other powers, especially China and India,
Mises Review 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) THE CASE FOR BIG GOVERNMENT Jeff Madrick Princeton University Press, 2009, 205 pgs. A book entitled The Case for Big Government has a very poor chance of obtaining favorable notice in The Mises Review . But with my usual exemplary fairness, I resolved not to condemn the book because its thesis contradicted my
Volume 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) AGAINST INTELLECTUAL MONOPOLY Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine Cambridge University Press, 2008 , viii + 298 pgs. One of the most important recent advances in libertarian theory has come in the field of intellectual property. Several writers, Stephan Kinsella most notably among them, have argued that patents and
Volume 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) DELETING THE STATE: AN ARGUMENT ABOUT GOVERNMENT Aeon J. Skoble Open Court, 2008, viii + 129 pgs. Aeon Skoble’s excellent book poses a fundamental challenge to minimal-state libertarians. All libertarians take freedom to be the highest political value and oppose coercion. Why, then, do some libertarians reject
Volume 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) THE LIMITS OF POWER: THE END OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM Andrew J. Bacevich Metropolitan Books, 2008, 206 pgs. Andrew Bacevich has written a powerful but flawed criticism of American foreign policy. Both an academic historian and a professional soldier, he is exceptionally qualified to undertake such a critique. He
Volume 15, No. 1 (Spring 2009) THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL Robert P. Murphy Regnery, 2009, 199 pgs. Robert Murphy demonstrates in this excellent book a penetrating ability to explain the essence of fallacious economic doctrines. As he notes, three theories offer competing explanations of the Great
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.