Annali D’Italianistica , “Speaking Truth to Power: From Medieval to Modern Italy.” Volume 34, 2016. Edited by Jo Ann Cavallo and Carlo Lottieri. The great historian of the Italian Renaissance Jacob Burckhardt said, “Power is evil,” and Jo Ann Cavalho and Carlo Lottieri, the co-editors of this volume, would with one caveat agree with him. They
Mervyn King is the British Ben Bernanke. An eminent academic economist, who now teaches both at New York University and the London School of Economics, King was from 2003 to 2013 Governor of the Bank of England. In short, he is a very big deal. Remarkably, in The End of Alchemy he frequently sounds like Murray Rothbard. King identifies a basic
William Weld, a former Governor of Massachusetts, has recently announced his intention to run for Vice-President on the Libertarian Party ticket, in concert with Gary Johnson. Weld has been since the 1990s greatly in favor at the Cato Institute, but Murray Rothbard viewed him with disdain. He often referred to Weld in the pages of The Rothbard
Fascism: The Career of a Concept . By Paul E. Gottfried. Northern Illinois University Press, 2016. Vii + 226 pages. Paul Gottfried’s immensely erudite survey of interpretations of fascism puts one in mind of Ludwig von Mises. Although Gottfried does not discuss Mises, readers of his excellent book will again and again be surprised and instructed
Few books have as misleading a title as Hard Choices . For Hillary Clinton, as this tedious memoir of her years as Secretary of State makes evident, there are no hard choices. The Solutions to all political and economic problems are easy. We must always rely on the directing hand of government, guided by the superior wisdom of our moral and
In a recent post on Facebook, Professor Peter Boettke of the George Mason University Department of Economics speaks in harsh terms of the view of libertarian rights held by Murray Rothbard and others, who, he thinks, were too clever for their own good. He complains, “there is a habit among libertarians to engage in what I have called ‘litmus test’
Critics of capitalism from Marx to Bernie Sanders claim that the free market exploits the working class for the benefit of the rich; and even some “classical liberals” of recent vintage argue that capitalism needs to be supplemented by a guaranteed basic income or the like. The critics have matters precisely wrong. In the free market, workers’
Harvey Cox has had a remarkable career as a theologian. He became famous with The Secular City , published in 1965; and fifty years later — he is now eighty-seven — he is still writing. His latest book displays both the virtues and defects characteristic of his work. He has read widely and often makes insightful remarks; but he lacks depth and
The authors of American Amnesia , well-known political scientists from Yale and Berkeley, argue that supporters of the free market have forgotten a fundamental truth. Defenders of the market often point to the “Great Fact,” as the distinguished economic historian Deirdre McCloskey terms it, i.e., the amazing increase in human well-being and wealth
Although Phishing for Phools was published only a few months ago, it has already attracted much attention, owing to the eminence of its authors, both Nobel Laureates; but it has been misunderstood. Reviewers have taken it to be just another popularization of behavioral economics. The book does make use of behavioral economics, but its fundamental
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.