Sixteen months ago, in March 2020, we argued for an end to government-imposed shutdowns of businesses, schools, churches, restaurants, and events due to the covid virus: The shutdown of the American economy by government decree should end. The lasting and far-reaching harms caused by this authoritarian precedent far outweigh those caused by the
“Today the tenets of this nineteenth-century philosophy of liberalism are almost forgotten. In the United States “liberal” means today a set of ideas and political postulates that in every regard are the opposite of all that liberalism meant to the preceding generations.” —Ludwig von Mises, 1962 (emphasis added) F.A. Hayek is back in the public
Last week the Edmund Burke Foundation played host to the third annual National Conservative Conference in Miami, Florida, bringing together several of the preeminent political and intellectual leaders in the contemporary Right. Organized by Yoram Hazony, this year’s NatcCon brought together diverse segments of a conservative movement that has been
“To mount an effective response to the reigning egalitarianism of our age, therefore, it is necessary but scarcely sufficient to demonstrate the absurdity, the anti-scientific nature, the self-contradictory nature, of the egalitarian doctrine, as well as the disastrous consequences of the egalitarian program. All this is well and good. But it
You do not defend a world that is already lost. When was it lost? That you cannot say precisely. It is a point for the revolutionary historian to ponder. We know only that it was surrendered peacefully, without a struggle, almost unawares. There was no day, no hour, no celebration of the event—and yet definitely, the ultimate power of initiative
The institution of the State is not normal or natural. We will pay for making this error. There are not different and unequal laws applying to masters and individuals. Once you accept, incorrectly, unilateral taxation and ultimate jurisdiction in the hands of the state you are stuck. Instead of protecting us, our government has made us more
Dr. Yoram Hazony’s new book The Virtue of Nationalism asks several provocative questions: are nation-states necessarily illiberal? Are globalism and universalism inevitable? If so, why do we blithely assume a post-national world will be liberal and benign? Are movements toward supranational governance, always ordered around western political
Voting “no” on a tax increase doesn’t mean you really consented to it. And, Lysander Spooner argued there’s not anything wrong with voting “defensively.” Original article: “No, Voting Doesn’t Mean You “Support the System”
We’re often told that submission to government edicts is “voluntary” because we have “representative” government. The evidence suggests, however, that politicians don’t represent their constituents. Nor could they, even if they wanted to. Original article: “ No Matter How You Vote, Politicians Don’t Represent You”
The midterm elections failed to produce an overwhelming Blue Wave, and political rancor in the US remains feverishly high. Now an astonishing new article in The Intelligencer considers the idea of a “federated” America, broken up into several political entities associated via compacts. It’s not a dystopian view of a possible future, but rather a
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.