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
Does America simply lack the political will to face economic reality? In the teeth of the Depression, Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon famously told President Herbert Hoover to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate”—in other words, to resist bailing out any industry through state intervention. This was a
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
“Today the tenets of this nineteenth-century philosophy of liberalism are almost forgotten. In the United States “liberal” means today a set of ideas and political postulates that in every regard are the opposite of all that liberalism meant to the preceding generations.” —Ludwig von Mises, 1962 (emphasis added) F.A. Hayek is back in the public
An excellent new book from Edward Chancellor, The Price of Time , sets out to explain both the theory and history of interest rates across five millennia and countless cultures. The theory is frequently bungled by economists; the history is frequently glossed over by historians. But thankfully Mr. Chancellor is up to the task. He is an excellent
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
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
Language is the perfect instrument of empire . —Antonio de Nebrija, bishop of Ávila, 1492 The bishop was correct, in his time and ours. Spain proceeded to become the most powerful empire in the world over the following century, spreading her mother tongue across the Americas—just as the Roman army had imposed Latin across its sweep and just as the
[The following is excerpted from remarks made at the Arizona Biltmore hotel this past weekend during the 2022 Mises Institute Supporters Summit] The architect Frank Lloyd Wright played an important role in the design of this beautiful desert resort. I’m sure I’m not the only person here tonight who was introduced to his work through reading Ayn
[Excerpted from remarks delivered at the Free Private Cities “Liberty in our Lifetime” Conference in Prague on 22 October, 2022] At this conference and others like it, dealing with alternative legal and monetary structures, I’ve noticed in recent years a strong bias in favor of action over argument, for building over persuading, for practice over
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.