Mark Thornton shows that George Lucas is taking bits and pieces of our own historical experience to retell a battle between good and evil that also touches on themes in political economy, particularly the choice between self-determination (essential to freedom) and imperialism (linked to war and state expansion).
The most accurate description of the twentieth century is "The War and Welfare Century." This century was the bloodiest in all history. More than 170 million people were killed by governments with ten million being killed in World War I and fifty million killed in World War II.
The meltdown of liberty can be stopped. But it won’t be stopped until those who understand the problem speak out courageously against the clear and present danger, which is the state at war. It is a danger even if the state wins. As Mises says: "no citizen of a liberal and democratic nation profits from a victorious war."
It was the achievement of Ludwig von Mises to recreate in his time the radical program of early liberalism, i.e., the realizing of individual freedom, peace, and prosperity through limitations on state power, individual rights, and an economy based on private property. A state pursuing vengeance, he believed, threatens liberty itself.
What set in motion the explosive technological advance of the last 250 years was the world of ideas. Great thinkers began to understand the internal logic of the market economy and its potential for liberating mankind from poverty, dependency, and despotic rule.
These two short books supplement each other and are best considered together. Mr. Chomsky is an assiduous collector of facts, many of them highly embarrassing to the U.S. government. Archbishop Williams,
The dust jacket of Mr. Kaplan's book made me suspicious. Henry Kissinger, that vest-pocket Bismarck, calls the book “one of the most thought-provoking and profound ... that I have ever read.”
Free trade is premised on the idea that human relationships should be voluntary and based on mutual consent. It is grounded on the understanding that the material, cultural, and spiritual improvements in the circumstances and conditions of man are best served when the members of the global community of mankind specialize their activities in a world-encompassing social system of division of labor.
Robert Kaplan's newest book seems to be, bottom line, a briefing book to justify the switches and turns, contradictions, and conflicting rationales for American foreign policy and the domestic political control to which it is tightly bound, while freeing the government to to do anything it wants, anywhere in the world it wants.
John Walker Lindh has pleaded not guilty to the charge that he conspired to kill Americans. It does seem like this religious pilgrim was caught at the wrong place, on the wrong side, at the wrong time. He was drawn to Islamic fundamentalism. For him it was the radical alternative to what he came to regard as the corrupt materialism of the West. He was there when the U.S. troops came, and now he faces life in prison.
