Volume 20, Number 1 (2006) First, I must begin by affirming my conviction that Lysander Spooner and Benjamin R. Tucker were unsurpassed as political philosophers and that nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy that they left to political philosophy. By the mid-nineteenth century, the libertarian
[This unsigned editorial, written by Murray N. Rothbard, appeared in the April 15, 1969, issue of The Libertarian (soon to become The Libertarian Forum ).] April 15, that dread Income Tax day, is around again, and gives us a chance to ruminate on the nature of taxes and of the government itself. The first great lesson to learn about taxation is
Our country is beset by a large number of economic myths that distort public thinking on important problems and lead us to accept unsound and dangerous government policies. Here are ten of the most dangerous of these myths and an analysis of what is wrong with them. Myth #1 Deficits are the cause of inflation; deficits have nothing to do with
[Excerpted from Murray Rothbard, The Progressive Era , Patrick Newman, ed. (Auburn, Al.: Mises Institute, 2016), chap. 11.] The Rockefellers and their intellectual and technocratic entourage were, indeed, central to the New Deal. In a deep sense, in fact, the New Deal itself constituted a radical displacement of the Morgans, who had dominated the
The Liberals are, at last, beginning to wake up. For decades the Liberals and the Old Left have been regaling us with exaltation of the power, the glory, the grandeur of the President, especially in foreign and military affairs. The President was, uniquely and miraculously, the living embodiment of the Will of the People. Once every four years the
If there was anything that characterized the Old Left it was adulation of labor unions and of the process by which the government has created, maintained, cabined, and confined these unions to its will. Government control inevitably follows government privilege, and, as in the Fascist or Communist countries, privileged unionism has become in
Above all else, Earl L. Francis cherished freedom; and to Earl Francis freedom meant working for himself, his own man on his own property. He found that freedom far from the madding crowd, high in the Catalina Mountains of Arizona; “A man can be free in the mountains,” Francis used to say, “He doesn’t have to punch a clock or take orders from a
Among the activist organizations of the New Left, two and only two have had a direct impact on American life: SNCC And SDS (the Berkeley phenomenon has been important, but has not been contained in anyone organization.) SNCC, founded in 1960, was the first, and its militance, direct action, and spirit of participatory democracy provided the
In the wake of the scandal of the NSA, several points need to be highlighted. In the first place, let all attacks cease forevermore on those of us who hold what has been universally smeared as the “conspiracy theory of history”: I. e., on those of us who believe in the laws of cause and effect, who believe that men do not act purposelessly and
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974) is an “invisible hand” variant of a Lockean contractarian attempt to justify the State, or at least a minimal State confined to the functions of protection. Beginning with a free-market anarchist state of nature, Nozick portrays the State as emerging, by an invisible hand
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.