William Graham Sumner wrote: All schemes for patronizing “the working classes” savor of condescension. They are impertinent and out of place in this free democracy. There is not, in fact, any such state of things or any such relation as would make projects of this kind appropriate. Such projects demoralize both parties, flattering the vanity of
One of the great heros of American classical liberalism was William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), author of this weekend’s read . Wikipedia calls him “the leading American advocate of free markets, anti-imperialism, and the gold standard.’ Also : Sumner opposed the Spanish American War and the subsequent U.S. effort to quell the insurgency in the
Me and my angelic wife are heading to our favorite Sunday restaurant, the Ding How II. Since it is Sunday, churches with full parking lots line the boulevard to the restaurant. I’m speeding by, because my stomach is sending a wireless message to the brain that the body needs refueling, fast. Therefore, I’m driving like a madman. Hey, there must be
While we’re revisiting the Industrial Revolution and the distortions of its historians, let me recommend Ralph Raico’s talk on the subject from the 2001 Mises University ( MP3 ). Also, in Robert LeFevre’s talks on the fear of a free market, he spends 4 sessions reviewing the Industrial Revolution: part 1 , part 2 , part 3 , part 4 (also all MP3).
In “How I Stole a Great Idea From Lew Rockwell,” Gary North writes: The Mises Institute in 1996 produced a superb 45-minute movie on the Federal Reserve System. It is the best introduction to what the FED really is and how it operates that I have ever seen. Yet I never saw the movie on a movie screen or a TV screen. I didn’t even know it existed.
Libertarians have always had a sense of history. Mainly because they puzzle over the USA of the 19th Century and its transformation into the USA of 2007. Many explanations are offered. A Pulitzer prize winner, Robert A. Caro, has made a unique contribution to this political conundrum in a multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. What a book! the
From BigWhiteGuy.com (”Adventures of a BigWhiteGuy living in Hong Kong”), comes an explanation of Chinese “Hell Notes” : The Chinese believe that when someone dies, his spirit goes to the afterlife, where it lives on, doing much the same things it did in life. Surviving relatives want to send gifts to make the afterlife as comfortable as possible.
Yesterday afternoon, my friend, who has recently moved to the Left Coast, pointed to this blog to alert me to the fact that MacArthur Maze, “the complex of freeways where Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and all the traffic from the East and South Bay area come to a head,” has collapsed again. (”Again?” Yes, again: the exact same spot that
COVER STORY By Emily Thornton Roads To Riches Why investors are clamoring to take over America’s highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous
3/13/05 How strange to find pride of workmanship in this seaside casino where the trick is to get rich without working; unless you consider work the mashing of a red lighted button that says “spin wheel”. Surrounding the buffet, where I’m chewing on a moist sticky sweet macaroon are hundreds of players symbolically throwing money at numbers in
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.