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
Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings. This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from covid. We have a responsibility,
Inflation in the US is at forty-year highs, while interest rates on ten-year Treasury notes just hit 3 percent—signaling trouble for home buyers. Truck drivers pay more than $1,000 to fill their rigs with $5 per gallon diesel to deliver your increasingly expensive groceries and Amazon packages. Crime and homelessness skyrocket in large cities,
Postliberalism is having its moment on the political Right in America. And why not? What exactly do conservatives have to lose that they haven’t lost already? The Bushes and their noxious legacy may be in the dustbin, where they belong, but if Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney represent the future of the movement, then a radical rethinking is in order.
In his ambitious new book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery (Regnery, 2022), the distinguished Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony poses a sharp challenge to the view that freedom is the highest political value, and in this week’s column, I’d like to address his challenge, which I find illuminating, though mistaken. By “freedom,” I mean what Rothbard,
Richard Arneson has been a major figure in political philosophy for the last few decades, and in this week’s article, I’d like to look at some points he raises in his article “Liberal Egalitarian Critiques,” his contribution to The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism , pp. 564–78. In the article, Arneson distinguishes between “hard”
[Editor’s note: Earlier this month Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe appeared on SERVUS TV for a discussion “On State, War, Europe, Decentralization and Neutrality.” An English translation of the transcript was prepared by Leonhard Paul, a law student from Germany.] Interviewer: I would like to welcome our second guest in the studio. It is the philosopher
The standard leftist refrain about “advanced capitalism” is that it amounts to “ socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor .” Like most leftist notions, this idea represents almost the exact opposite of the truth. The system they refer to is anything but socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. Capitalists do not want socialism
Decentralization has long been at the forefront of the minds of Austro-libertarians. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, for instance, appeared on Austrian television this month sharing his dream of a Europe “which consists of 1,000 Liechtensteins.” Although principally based on economic reasoning, this policy agenda emerged at least in part out of a celebration
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.