Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. The GameStop saga shows some “equity” movements are more equal than others. Stakeholder theory , the corporate version of social justice, attempts to install this hopelessly amorphous concept of “equity” in the business world. Equity, unlike equality, demands different treatment of
The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will Hachette Books, 2019 xxxix + 600 pp. The well-known Washington columnist George Will was long ago a libertarian, but he soon changed his mind, adopting instead a statist variety of conservatism. In The Conservative Sensibility , he returns to his libertarian roots, but the return is incomplete, and he
Raghuram Rajan has written a surprising book. Now teaching finance at the University of Chicago, he is an international bureaucrat in good standing, and not a minor one at that; he was chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Yet far from calling for an increase in “global governance,” as one might expect from someone with his
In a previous installment , I pointed out that in On Liberty , John Stuart Mill advocated for minority opinion to be specially “encouraged and countenanced,” and thus that Mill was not an absolute free market thinker where opinion is concerned. Mill suggested that minority opinion should not only be tolerated but requires special encouragement in
[The State] forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscrupulous hands on anything it wants, whether the property of citizen or alien. —Albert Jay Nock, 1928, On Doing the Right Thing LIBERTARIANISM AND THE STATE: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT Libertarianism has proved to be a
In this week’s column, I’d like to discuss an important criticism of the modern state that the historian Martin van Creveld raises in his classic book The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge University Press, 1999). By “state,” Van Creveld means something different from contemporary libertarians, for whom the state means a person or group
The historian Allen C. Guelzo in the epilogue to his rather hostile Robert E. Lee: A Life (Knopf, 2021) raises important questions about the value of nationalism that I’d like to discuss in this week’s column. Guelzo has favorable things to say about some of Lee’s personal qualities, but in his mind Lee committed one unforgiveable sin—he betrayed
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
Ralph Raico examines the history and ideology of imperialism—and why the state loves war and empire so much. From the 2006 Supporters Summit: Imperialism: Enemy of Freedom , 27–28 October 2006, Auburn, Alabama. [33
Once upon a time, those in power were smart enough to recognize the importance of popular support. Now the arrogant behavior of those in power is sowing the seeds of true subversion of federal authority. Original Article: “ If Congress Were Genuinely Interested in Democracy, They Would Welcome an Election Commission “ This Audio Mises Wire is
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.