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A few months after my original article on “libertarian brutalism,” published by the Foundation for Economic Education, a very smart thinker named Robin Koerner reached out to me for an interview. It ended up being more of a discussion and then a co-led seminar. Robin was just discovering the fullness of the liberal tradition and... Read More
Knowledge of the principles of the free society is not something that everyone is born with or something that we just catch like the common cold. The principles of liberty must be carefully passed on from one generation to the next if they are to survive, let alone flourish. Each generation must learn anew from... Read More
Murray Rothbard was a true polymath. He wasn’t just the number one theoretician of the modern libertarian movement — author of the monumental Man, Economy, and State; Conceived in Liberty, a four-volume history of the American Revolution; the two-volume An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, and essays too numerous to list —... Read More
Few economists manage to produce a body of work that boasts a serious following twenty years after their deaths. Murray N. Rothbard is a rare exception. More than two decades since his passing, his influence lives on, both in the work of a new generation of social scientists, and among a growing number of the... Read More
When Murray Rothbard wrote “Science, Technology, and Government” in 1959, supporters of the free market needed to confront a challenge that remains relevant today. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched its “Sputnik” satellite, thereby defeating the United States in the race between the two countries to be first into space. Did this victory show, or... Read More
After Joey Rothbard’s death, I flew to New York to organize the disposal of Murray and Joey’s goods according to their wills. Books and papers went to the Mises Institute, of course, where they are the center of our library and archives. But my strongest memory, aside from ineffable sadness, was the printed document on... Read More
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is one of the most remarkable libertarian scholars of our time. He began as a prize student of Jürgen Habermas, the famous German philosopher and social theorist. Habermas was, and remains to this day, a committed Marxist. He is the leader of the notorious Frankfurt school. Habermas was very impressed with Hans, and,... Read More
We live in a world of euphemism. Undertakers have become "morticians," press agents are now "public relations counsellors" and janitors have all been transformed into "superintendents." In every walk of life, plain facts have been wrapped in cloudy camouflage. No less has this been true of economics. In the old days, we used to suffer... Read More
In the capitalist system of society's economic organization the entrepreneurs determine the course of production. In the performance of this function they are unconditionally and totally subject to the sovereignty of the buying public, the consumers. If they fail to produce in the cheapest and best possible way those commodities which the consumers are asking... Read More
Economics, wrote Joseph Schumpeter, is "a big omnibus which contains many passengers of incommensurable interests and abilities." That is, economists are an incoherent and ineffectual lot, and their reputation reflects it. Yet it need not be so, for the economist attempts to answer the most profound question regarding the material world. Pretend you know nothing... Read More
This collection of articles on the business cycle, money, and exchange rates by Ludwig von Mises appeared between 1919 and 1946. Here we have the evidence that the master economist foresaw and warned against the breakdown of the German mark, as well as the market crash of 1929 and the depression that followed. He presents... Read More
Lecture given at "The Bankruptcy of American Politics" conference, sponsored by the Mises Institute and held in Newport Beach, California; January 24-25, 1997. An audio version of this talk is available here. A slightly more appropriate title[1] would be “Society, State, and Liberty: The Austro-Libertarian Strategy of Social Revolution.” So I want to step up... Read More
By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee supervises these operations, controls their budgets, and is informed... Read More
The Austrian School of economics arose in opposition to the German Historical School; and Carl Menger developed his methodological views in combat with the rival group. I thus wish first to discuss the philosophical doctrines of the Historical School, since this will deepen our comprehension of the contrasting Austrian position. Next, I shall examine some... Read More
When my husband died in 1973 I had to go through his papers. Some of them were still in manuscript form and had never before been published. I selected several of these, plus a number of other articles that had appeared in periodicals but were no longer in print. This book is the result. At... Read More
When Professor Ludwig von Mises died in 1973, he was mourned by friends, associates, and students. His admirers at that time, though not numerous, had recognized him for decades as an intellectual giant and the leading spokesman of the subjective value, marginal utility, "Austrian" school of economics. Yet most of the world paid little attention... Read More
Although first published 25 years ago, Murray Rothbard’s The Mystery of Banking continues to be the only book that clearly and concisely explains the modern fractional reserve banking system, its origins, and its devastating effects on the lives of every man, woman, and child. It is especially appropriate in a year that will see; a... Read More
The history of economic thought, like that of other disciplines, reveals a mixture of systems of thought that have been separated into particular schools of ideas. This method of categorizing the ideas of different thinkers concentrates on the likenesses of certain groups while overshadowing their differences. The French Physiocrats who rose to prominence during the... Read More
The ideal economic policy, both for today and tomorrow, is very simple. Government should protect and defend against domestic and foreign aggression the lives and property of the persons under its jurisdiction, settle disputes that arise, and leave the people otherwise free to pursue their various goals and ends in life. This is a radical... Read More
In the twentieth century, the advocates of free market economics almost invariably pin the blame for government intervention solely on erroneous ideas—that is, on incorrect ideas about which policies will advance the public weal. To most of these writers, any such concept as "ruling class" sounds impossibly Marxist. In short, what they are really saying... Read More
Until recently the Austrian School of Economics was a topic studied almost solely by historians of economic thought interested in the development of marginal utility theory in the late nineteenth century. Not only has the life span of the school been longer than those few decades, however, but marginalism as such has never been its... Read More
The Occasional Papers are intended to make essays or addresses, of outstanding importance, accessible to a wider readership than that to which they were originally addressed. The 47 so far have included Papers by some of Britain's, and the world's, leading economists but also some important Papers by less well-known names. No. 48 is an... Read More
Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature displays remarkable organic unity: the book is much more than the sum of its parts. Points made in the various essays included in the book mesh together to form a consistent worldview. The system of thought set forward in these essays, moreover, illuminates both history and the contemporary world.... Read More
The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service. Some theorists venerate the State as the apotheosis of society; others regard it as an amiable, though often inefficient, organization for achieving social ends; but almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged... Read More
Every human infant comes into the world devoid of the faculties characteristic of fully-developed human beings. This does not mean simply the ability to see clearly, to move around, to feed oneself, etc.; above all, it means he is devoid of reasoning power — the power that distinguishes man from animals. But the crucial distinction... Read More
ECONOMISTS HAVE REFERRED INNUMERABLE TIMES to the “free market,” the social array of voluntary exchanges of goods and services. But despite this abundance of treatment, their analysis has slighted the deeper implications of free exchange. Thus, there has been general neglect of the fact that free exchange meansexchange of titles of ownership to property, and... Read More
The Conservative has long been marked, whether he knows it or not, by long-run pessimism: by the belief that the long-run trend, and therefore Time itself, is against him, and hence the inevitable trend runs toward left-wing statism at home and Communism abroad. It is this long-run despair that accounts for the Conservative's rather bizarre... Read More
The enduring power of this book is due to the enduring power of economic logic. If it is done well, it applies in all times and places. And this book does economics extremely well. In times when economics is subject to vast political manipulation, when people have abused the science to push political agendas contrary... Read More
People who read these reflections may wonder how I arrived at the understanding that socialism has failed. I am describing the whole experience in another book, but here a brief glance at the intellectual road I traveled may be helpful. It has not been so winding a road as some may think. I stated the... Read More
To the Memory of Albert Jay Nock [Originally published by The Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1954] Tradition has a way of hanging on even after it is, for all practical purposes, dead. We in this country still use individualistic terms—as, for instance, the rights of man—when, as a matter of fact, we think and behave... Read More
The work of John T. Flynn (1882–1964) is proof that the job of journalist once meant something very serious. As We Go Marching is a work of scholarship by any standard. It is well written, to be sure, but it covers the history and meaning of fascism with fantastic erudition, tracing its permutations from Italy... Read More
Isabel Paterson (1886–1961) was one of the most erudite and widely educated thinkers to ever grace the libertarian world. This book is her masterwork. Its contents have not been sufficiently absorbed into the current intellectual world. It is one of those lost treasures, a book that you begin and your whole world stops. It is... Read More
Originally published 1935. "Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression, and by aggression." ~ Herbert Spencer, 1850. "This is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention, the absorption of all spontaneous social effort... Read More
In 1960, in the preface to the first English-language edition of this volume of essays, Mises wrote, "They represent... the necessary preliminary study for the thorough scrutiny of the problems involved such as I tried to provide in my book Human Action, a Treatise of Economics" (p. VII). This brief indication of the position these... Read More
THERE ARE TWO USES of the word liberalism that I find heartbreaking. The first occurs when a self-described liberal pushes government power as the solution to all our economic and social woes. How can this be? Government is not liberal. Government is the robber, the coercer, the taser, the jailer. Another is when a self-described... Read More
Albert Jay Nock wrote one of the first American books of WWI Revisionism— revising the received story of why WWI began. As a lover of history, what is particularly fascinating about his book The Myth of a Guilty Nation is not whether this is the best explanation for WWI. What is fascinating is the great... Read More
The twentieth century has witnessed the beginning, development, and end of the most tragic experiment in human history: socialism. The experiment resulted in tremendous human losses, destruction of potentially rich economies, and colossal ecological disasters. The experiment has ended, but the devastation will affect the lives and health of generations to come. The real tragedy... Read More
The pages that I herewith submit to the public do not presume to be more than observations about the crisis in world history that we are living through and contributions to understanding the political conditions of our time. I know that any attempt to offer more would be premature and therefore mistaken. Even if we... Read More
