Media and Culture

Ironically, you would think that a film called Broke: The New American Dream would be pessimistic and depressing, while a film called Capitalism: A Love Story would be upbeat and positive. The opposite is true.

The contributors to this outstanding collection of essays propose a revolution in literary criticism — a revolution, moreover, that has as its heart the application of Austrian economics.

Arriving at those goals is not exactly doable unless government robs Peter to pay Paul and/or starts up the printing press.

"We" were the people, suddenly staring at the fact that we had assumed ultimate and unlimited liability — moral, physical, and financial — for the outcome of war on three continents, for the survival of the British Empire, and for the utter destruction of Hitler.

There is no surer guide to the principles of political liberty than the Federalist Papers; no more penetrating and imaginative study of the forces that may wreck or sap liberty than de Tocqueville's great classic.

It is a feast for the eyes and ears, a look at how dramatically and sweepingly different our times are in so many ways, and yet how the themes of corruption, deception, and lies are persistent wherever public and private violence against person and property rears its ugly head.

Reisman shows himself ever alert to defend capitalism against objection, and I found especially impressive his demolition of Marx's argument that profit derives from exploiting labor.

From the point of view of a cynical world the American who entered two world wars and won them both, when his own interest was not paramount, was either an inscrutable hypocrite or an unbelievable romantic, and in either case a dangerous possessor of the world's ultimate power.

The battle between Rand and Branden, moreover, is really no contest. Rand created something, whereas Branden has lived his entire life parasitically off Rand, first as a worshipful disciple and cult organizer, then as a neo-Randian shrink who set up shop in California with the solid initial base of the RandCult's Nathaniel Branden Institute mailing list.

Capitalism delivers the goods, and it does so in abundance. Interventionist alternatives do not.