Christopher Layne and Bradley Thayer both specialize in international-relations theory, in particular what they term “grand strategy,” but they hold very different views on what foreign policy the United States ought to pursue. “Distilled to its essence, grand strategy is about determining the state’s vital interests — that is, those that are
Grant defeated Lee, the Confederacy crumbled, and the idea of secession disappeared forever, or at least that’s what the conventional wisdom says. Secession is no historical irrelevance. Quite the contrary, the topic is integral to classical liberalism. Indeed, the right of secession follows at once from the basic rights defended by classical
A recent article in American Affairs by Cass Sunstein illustrates a cast of mind that poses a great danger. Sunstein is a legal academic, well-known for his work in behavioral economics. In his book Nudge , written with Richard Thaler, he informed us of the benefits of having experts like him “nudge” us into making choices that they regard as good
As I read The Executive Unbound , I found myself in a world turned upside down. I take the following to be not only true, but obviously true: Today and in the recent past, all-but-uncheckable presidents have involved us in unneeded wars, invaded our liberties, and subjected us to economic controls that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to fascism.
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 4 (Winter 2016) Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong Cambridge: Harvard Business Review Press, 2016 Cohen and DeLong are well-known economists, but they indict their fellow economists for an overemphasis on theory. Away with models that have little relation to reality, our authors say. Instead,
[ Full issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 20, no. 4 (2017)] The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Economic Growth, and Increase Inequality by Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, viii+ 221 pp. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Progressives
Right by Half Mises Review 2, No. 3 (Fall 1996) WHAT’S RIGHT: THE NEW CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY AND THE REMAKING OF AMERICA David Frum Basic Books, 1996, xv + 208 pgs. David Frum’s new collection of essays and columns is like the curate’s egg good in parts. He sometimes provides insightful defenses of the free market; but curious blind spots spoil
Delusions of a Convert Mises Review 2, No. 3 (Fall 1996) UP FROM CONSERVATISM: WHY THE RIGHT IS WRONG FOR AMERICA Michael Lind The Free Press, 1996, viii + 295 pgs. As usual, my reviews have been too generous. Although Lind’s earlier work, The Next American Nation, struck me as fundamentally flawed, Lind seemed to me possessed of an interesting
Wither’d Garland of War Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) THE COSTS OF WAR: AMERICA’S PYRRHIC VICTORIES John V. Denson, Editor Transaction Publishers, 1997, viii + 450 pgs. The contributors to this outstanding volume have grasped a simple but unfashionable truth: war is a great evil. It entails horrible suffering and death on a large scale and has
Whose Style? Which America? Mises Review 3, No. 3 (Fall 1997) ASSIMILATION, AMERICAN STYLE Peter D. Salins Basic Books, 1997, xi + 259 pgs. Peter Salins, Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, has good news. Americans need no longer worry about immigration, so long as a simple and straightforward plan is adopted: all immigrants
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.