World History

So the basic strategy of trying to convert the king led inexorably to at least a broadly utilitarian approach to the problems of freedom and government intervention.

As Barnes noted, there were a number of "middle-class writers" who took more or less this line, but "by far the most influential" of them "was the 17th-century English philosopher, John Locke. Many of his theories were taken up and popularized in America by Thomas Jefferson."

Raico provides a detailed reading of their work in all these respects and shows that one need not embrace statism, and that one can be a consistent and full-blown liberal in the classical tradition, and not come anywhere near fulfilling the stereotype that conservatives were then creating of libertarians.

The truth is that capitalism has poured a horn of plenty upon the masses of wage earners, who frequently did all they could to sabotage the adoptio

When Jean-Baptiste Colbert died on September 6, 1683, there was celebration throughout France.

Recorded at Mises University 2010.

The imposition of Colbert's regime of statism, monopoly, and prohibitive tariffs, combined with Louis XIV's high taxation and centralization, gave rise, by the late 1660s, to a growing tide of opposition by merchants and nobility alike.

The rebels’ overriding grievance was against the tax farmers and tax officials: “It is they who have forced [the peasants] to take up a

According to Louis XIV, a king is superhuman, a man who is above all and sees all and is the only one working for the “public” good, wh

Catholic political thought had come a long way from the Spanish scholastics.