[ Why Not Socialism? • By G.A. Cohen • Princeton University Press, 2009 • 83 pages] G.A. Cohen (1941–2009) grew up as a Marxist, but he abandoned a key belief of that doctrine. Marx taught that the coming of socialism was inevitable. The key to history was the development of the forces of production, which tended continually to grow. As they did
[ Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State • By Garry Wills • Penguin Press, 2010 • 278 pages] I did not anticipate writing a favorable review of a book by Garry Wills. He veered fairly early in his career from a quirky form of conservatism to a run-of-the mill leftism. In his A Necessary Evil , he assailed the view that
[ Morality, Political Economy, and American Constitutionalism • By Timothy P. Roth • Edward Elgar, 2007 • X + 194 pages. An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Donna Orlando, is available for download .] Timothy Roth has in earlier work offered a penetrating criticism of modern welfare economics. In Morality, Political Economy, and
[ The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free • By Christopher A. Preble • Cornell University Press, 2009 • Xiii + 212 pages] Though America may be the world’s mightiest nation, it cannot achieve the grandiose goals of the interventionists.” America, it is frequently urged, cannot return to
[ Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? • By Michael J. Sandel • Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009 • 307 pages] It is easy to see why Michael Sandel is a popular Harvard professor. He presents major ideas of ethics and political philosophy in a clear way, tied to important contemporary issues. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? , based
In this article, David Gordon offers a review of George H. Smith’s Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies . Volume 10, Number 2 (1992) Gordon, David. “Review of Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies By George H. Smith.” Journal of Libertarian Studies 10, No. 2 (1992):
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life Nassim Nicholas Taleb Random House, 2018 To review Skin in the Game is a risky undertaking. The author has little use for book reviewers who, he tells us, “are bad middlemen. Book reviews are judged according to how plausible and well-written they are; never in how they map the book (unless of
The Founder , a movie based on the life of Ray Kroc, vividly illustrates crucial points about entrepreneurship and the market stressed by Mises. In the film, Kroc, played by Michael Keaton, begins as a salesman selling milkshake machines. He meets the McDonald brothers, the owners of a small diner in San Bernardino, California. Kroc has come to
The Free Market 31, no. 6 (June 2013) At the Brink: Will Obama Push Us Over the Edge? John R. Lott, Jr. Regnery, 2013, 320 pgs . John Lott is best known to the public for his outstanding analysis of gun control legislation, but his research as an economist extends far beyond that topic; and he here gives us a devastating account that covers the
Island of Sanity Mises Review 3, No. 4 (Winter 1997) LITERATURE LOST John M. Ellis Yale University Press, 1997, x + 262 pgs. Like Martha Nussbaum, whose Cultivating Humanity is addressed above, John M. Ellis is concerned with multiculturalism. His excellent book, taken together with her less than excellent one, enables readers to gain a firm grasp
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.