May 29th marks the birthday in 1736 of Patrick Henry, America’s “Orator of Liberty.” His “ Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death “ speech in March 1775 was the spark that ignited the Revolution in Virginia, and continues to serve as a battle cry for all who seek to overthrow tyrants. But the influence of “The Voice of the Revolution” was greater than
Americans live in a world where regulation and taxation at multiple levels of government erode their ability to make choices for themselves. That is, we face constant government assaults on our property rights, as they increasingly limit owners’ power over their property. As James Fenimore Cooper could already write in 1838, “There is getting to
May 8 marks the 1899 birth of Friedrich Hayek. Though best known as an economist, he was acclaimed for contributions in many fields. Nobel Prize winners and others have lauded him as the 20th century’s outstanding economist, social scientist, and political philosopher. Peter Boettke named him “probably the most prodigious classical liberal scholar
October 14 is a date celebrated in Pennsylvania, but unfortunately not in other states. That is because it marks the 1644 birthday of William Penn—its founder, but also an important contributor to freedom in the US. Before Pennsylvania was founded, Penn defended British rights on which Americans’ rights would be built. Penn joined the Quakers at
One of the best writers of the old liberal school was Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (1800-1859), the Whig historian, essayist and statesman. He was an unashamed advocate of economic freedom and a writer who excelled at pointing out the errors of logic and abuses of power he saw at work around him, who, according to Walter Olson, “has a fair
Today, December 5, marks the birthday of Rose Wilder Lane (Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder) born 1886 and died 1968. She was one of the last century’s most ardent defenders of American freedoms. In books such as The Discovery of Freedom (one of the top 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century in a readers’ poll) and Give Me Liberty , which laid
In a long public life, Ron Paul has always kept faith with the limited defensible role for our federal government. He hasn’t sold out that vision to “buy” goodies extorted from others via government coercion, truly representing those disenchanted with the ballooning size scope of government. As a result, he has been criticized, including by those
James Fenimore Cooper, America’s first great national novelist, widely influenced our literature and Americans’ sense of history in the 19th century. However, Cooper also wrote about political issues, particularly in The American Democrat (1838), whose themes reflect America’s founders, in sharp contrast to modern American practice. Cooper focused
Much of what we know is by analogy, because, as Jacob Bronowski put it, “at the basis of human thought lies the judgment of what is like and what is unlike.” Analogies are so important in extending understanding and expressing ideas that William James said, “A native talent for perceiving analogies is reckoned . . . as the leading fact in
January 18 marks the birth of Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. Robert Wokler called Montesquieu “perhaps the most central thinker of the enlightenment.” He was also an important influence on America’s founders, particularly his argument that a separation of powers was necessary for liberty to be maintained — so much so that one
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.