Here is the introduction to the new edition of For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Mises Institute, 2006) There are many varieties of libertarianism alive in the world today, but Rothbardianism remains the center of its intellectual gravity, its primary muse and conscience, its strategic and moral core, and the focal point of debate even
People tell me that Saddam Hussein is a very bad man. Probably he is. OK, really he is. He is egregiously immoral and ghastly. Should he be put on trial? Can such a trial be fair? This is where it gets complicated. If all heads of state who commit violent acts were to be tried as criminals, we would live in a very different world. It would be a
Before eyes turned to the investigation of the US murders of civilians in Haditha, Iraq, or the US murders of civilians in Ishaqi, Iraq, and new outrage broke out over the military murder of two women, one of them pregnant, in Mosul, Iraq, there was news pouring out from another outpost of the US empire. Only last week, Kabul, Afghanistan, was on
Fifteen glorious years without a central government in Somalia! It was typically described as a “power vacuum,” as if the absence of a taxing, regulating, coercing junta is an unnatural state of affairs, one that cannot and should not last. Well, now this “vacuum” is being filled, with an Islamic militia claiming to be in control of the capital of
An interesting challenge to the idea that markets can produce safety and quality comes from a report from the federal buildings inspection team . The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the Commerce Department, looked at homes that were damaged in Katrina and Rita last year. They found that many of them were not built to the
There is something morally creepy about the way the White House responded to the news — released as inconspicuously as possible — that the 2,500th American soldier has died in Iraq. “It’s a number,” said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Yes, and so is 5,000, and 10,000, and 15,000. Is there is no amount of American bloodshed that would
Let there be no doubt that the war on malaria has failed. It is estimated that 800,000 children in Africa die from the disease every year, and as many as three million people altogether every year. We know how people contract it: from mosquitoes. We know how to control it: kill the carrier mosquitoes. And we know what kills them: DDT. So why has
So you thought that the US went into Iraq to uproot a dangerous dictator and establish democracy? Well, the US military has taken on a job a bit more difficult than that. It is trying to build an economy, which no state in the history of the world has been able to do without the assistance of a vibrant market. Fallujah, Iraq, has no economy to
Well, aren’t we all having lots of fun heaping scorn and derisive laughter on Senator Ted Stevens for his hilariously uninformed commentary on how the internet works? The audio is all over the web, and doesn’t he just sound ridiculous? Actually, I’m not sure that a single elected official in this country, at any level of government, could speak
[This talk was given in New York, New York, March 21, 2006.] When Mr. Bush went to war, he put little thought into financing it, which signifies fiscal irresponsibility. Under the framers’ design, he is supposed to go to Congress to ask for the money, all the money, and if Congress doesn’t have it, the war can’t go on unless taxes are raised or
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.