Media and Culture

Jim Bovard is, without a doubt, the best political researcher-writer in politics today, say Karen De Coster. While most writers add a few footnotes to their writing, Bovard adds some first-rate writing to his immaculate set of footnotes. He doesn't make wild judgments or blanket allegations. Instead, he provides an encyclopedia’s worth of timely quotes laid out in chronological fashion, to funnel the reader through an extensive framework of US government double-dealing, coercion, corruption, and propaganda milling.

What possible difference can another book make? Why should anyone care about the message of one book as compared with its many millions of competitors? It comes down to this, writes Lew Rockwell. Though there is an astounding proliferation of words in our time, there is a drastic shortage of something that is essential to the survival of civilization: defenses of liberty against its ubiquitous enemies and its main enemy, the state.

The gym has Fox television on, and perhaps I should be grateful, because otherwise it would not have dawned on me just how popular and widely embraced stupid is.

The capture of Saddam unleashed so much euphoria that many people have forgotten that the original justification for the war was not merely

Paul Cantor tours the Black Sea region and observes how the juxtaposition of Lenin and McDonald's is curiously symbolic of the whole history of the region. For over two thousand years, two forces have contended with each other in this strategically located area: the state as conqueror and merchants who come in peace.

The new film starring Bill Murray, and directed by Sofia Coppola, has a message that is not hidden: the commercial marketplace is the enemy of true art. Matthew Hisrich says this is an old message, one refuted by Mises in the 1940s. The marketplace gives us more of everything, including good and bad art. 

When the Winter Olympics came to Salt Lake City last year, some of the dirt that visiting journalists dug up to soil Utah's good name was the issue of polygamy. Polygamy, the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time, especially wives, is against the law. But, should it be?

The services provided by the paparazzi are subject to market discipline, writes Erich Mattei. So long as they provide publishers and consumers what they want, freelance celebrity photography will continue to be in demand and people will be drawn to this line of work. And yet, about about ethics? What about criminality?

Perhaps you regret that you didn't take a course on economics from Murray Rothbard. Well, you can. Or perhaps you regret missing the Austrian Scholars Conferences for the last several years. Well, listen online. Concerning texts, Mises.org features all the writings of Mises that we can possibly put online, not to mention nearly everything the Mises Institute has ever published.