U.S. History

The “forgotten depression” can still teach us important lessons: that the interventionist and spendthrift state is often more part of the problem than it is of the solution.

Amity Shlaes has read Mises and the Austrians, and understands property as the foundation for civilization. She is an expert on the criminally underrated Calvin Coolidge, and a devastating critic of Hoover and FDR’s Great Society schemes. Shlaes is the rare historian who understands economics.

Whether we're commanded to trust the experts, abandon the rule of law, or venerate government for "keeping us safe," the 9/11 panic and our current crisis have many things in common.

The best way to think about tradition is to view it like capital accumulation. Knowledge is accumulated through countless centuries of trial and error. The state seeks to destroy historical consciousness and old ways of life to secure power.

The Fed has abandoned its own rules on "price stability" in order to favor what are essentially higher inflation targets. The Fed is now headed down a road it traveled in the 1970s.

This CIA’s omnipotent power to assassinate people came into existence without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment. It was ostensibly enacted by Congress and later acceded to by the Supreme Court.

Thomas Sowell concluded that “A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression.”

The fact that Yalta can now clearly be seen to have been a betrayal is another reason to be wary when pundits and talk show hosts jump on the bandwagon for the next killing spree abroad

The original American progressive movement was split into two groups: the corporatists and the socialists. Woodrow Wilson was able to work with both. In Kamala Harris, he may have an heir.