The Free Society . By Laurence M. Vance. Vance Publications, 2018. Xii + 468 pages. Laurence Vance is best known for his work as a specialist on the King James translation of the Bible, but he is also an outstanding writer on libertarian issues. In The Free Society , he has collected a large number of his articles for the period 2005-2017, almost
Herbert Aptheker: Studies in Willful Blindness . By Anthony Flood. Independently published, 2019. I +93 pages. Anthony Flood tells that in “the early 1970s, I was an acolyte of Herbert Aptheker(1915-2003). Known mainly for his writings on African-American history he was also, during the Cold War and even after, a theoretician of the Communist
The economist Alex Tabarrok in a post today criticizes what he calls ”identity economics”. Tabarrok says: “Identity economics is bad economics”. By “identity economics,” he means a theory that jumps from an accounting identity to a claim about causation. Keynesian economics is a prime example of this fallacy, as Tabarrok’s quotation from Nick Rowe
Libertarianism . By Eric Mack. Polity Press, 2018. Vi + 167 pages. + online bonus chapter http://politybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Mack-Libertarian-FINAL-Online-Chapter-pdf.pdf Eric Mack, for many years a philosophy professor at Tulane University, has a well-deserved reputation as a critic of philosophical arguments, and that talent is
Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy . Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew, Eds. University of Pittsburgh Press. Xi + 460 pages. This excellent book mirrors in its choice of contributors the odd relationship between Ayn Rand and libertarianism. On the one hand, her own proposals for the political
Political Capitalism: How Economic and Political Power is Made and Maintained . By Randall G. Holcombe. Cambridge University Press, 2018. X + 294 pages. Randall Holcombe is best known as an economist for his work in public choice, but in this impressive new book, he adds a historical dimension to public choice by combining it with “elite theory.”
Revisionist history, as applied to World War I, began as an effort to challenge Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which claimed that the war had been imposed on “the Allied and Associated Governments” by “the aggression of Germany and her allies.” By extension, revisionist history also criticizes the decision of the United States in 1917
People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent . By Joseph E. Stiglitz. Norton, 2019. Xxvii + 371 pages. Joseph Stiglitz is an eminent economist, but it is evident from People, Power, and Profits that he is a moralist as well, and one of a peculiar sort. Early in the book, he says this: “to answer such questions
Economics In Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly . By John Quiggin. Princeton University Press, 2019. Xii + 390 pages. The Australian economist John Quiggin is dissatisfied with Henry Hazlitt’s great book Economics in One Lesson and in his new book endeavors to set its author straight. He says of Hazlitt, “His One
In response to my brief review of an article and book by him, as well as a review of a book by “Bronze Age Pervert,” Michael Anton has written a long attack on me . I do not propose to comment on all of his remarks but only on a few likely to be of interest to readers. Although Mr. Anton and I differ on a great many matters, I should like to
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.