After years of grueling war, victory must be close at hand. America’s fighting men and women have defended the flag and advanced freedom’s cause on battlefields across the globe in their hundreds of thousands, and of these, thousands have rendered their last, full measure of devotion. Congress has placed the economy on a war footing with annual
This year is the bicentennial of the birth of Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the most famous political commentators about America. Although not always a consistent thinker, he stands squarely in the classical liberal tradition of understanding the capacity of society to self organize in the absence of a controlling central state. Charles Eliot
Starting this year, every educational institution receiving federal aid must teach about the U.S. Constitution on the September 17 anniversary of its signing (September 16 in 2005, as the 17th is a Saturday). The requirement is ironic, given that it came from the Senate’s leading Constitutional scholar, yet clearly conflicts with the Constitution,
Mitchell Anderson’s article, “End of cheap oil is a blessing,” attacks the widespread outrage over the unusually high gas prices of recent months. Anderson mixes three parts economic fallacy with two parts condemnation of government absurdities, and adds a dash of fervent environmentalism. The result is a hilarious (or infuriating, depending on
They just don’t make statesmen the way they used to. Every week a new revelation comes to light about some senator or congressman’s ethical transgressions. Much time was spent during the last presidential election campaign speculating about which candidate was the more mediocre student in college. And, Nevada’s favorite son, Harry Reid, whom
“Was FDR popular in Alabama back in the 1930s?” I was asking Jackson, a man whom I know primarily from our conversations each Sunday after Mass, outside of the rural parish in Piedmont. I don’t know his last name (or maybe that is his last name). I do know this: Jackson is a retired Delta Airlines mechanic living out his last years in northeastern
Those of us who appreciate liberty, voluntary exchange, and workers’ property rights to their own labor have long-objected to the American organized labor movement. Since the 1930s, this movement has been defined by the AFL-CIO. This “mother of all unions” is the biggest, with a membership of just under 13 million workers at the end of 2004. It is
[A version of this review of How Capitalism Saved America: the Untold History Of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present by Thomas J. DiLorenzo (New York: Crown Forum, 2004) appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 8.1 ] One advantage that Austrian economists have over those in the mainstream is that they often specialize
Walsh College Economic State of the Union How inevitable is the continuing expansion of the domestic and international economy? Barring a major war and a major depression, and a policy response that repeats the errors of traditional countercyclical policies, I would say that continued world economic expansion is likely. For an Austrian all too
The Kelo decision, in which the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case of a local government taking of private property, touched off a huge debate among libertarians on the question of decentralization. The most common perspective was that the decision was a disaster because it gave permission to local governments to steal land.
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.