I have great news: a brand-new Murray Rothbard book on The Progressive Era. And do we need it!
Could anything be more timely, as we are daily plagued by these enemies of freedom, free enterprise, private property, and peace — indeed of Western civilization itself?
They’ve been doing their termite-like work since the 19th century, to almost constant applause. But now they have to face what could be a knockout blow.
Murray was a genius Austrian economist and libertarian philosopher, of course. But he was also one of the most significant American historians, as this book shows.
Also important: Murray was a writer of extraordinary power. This is a scholarly, completely documented, and detailed book. But Murray also had a novelist’s skill at character, narrative, and drive. It’s more than 500 pages, but you will not want to put it down.
Progressives, and the plutocrats who fund them, don’t realize it, but they are about to be hit as they have never been hit before.
The Progressive Era explains and skewers the interest groups, intellectuals, and ideas that helped end the vibrant laissez-faire era in America. As always, Murray roots his historical analysis in power-elite analysis. This is unfashionable, of course, but crony capitalists were the founding fathers of Progressivism.
Corrupt big businesses wanted monopolies, but that proved impossible to achieve on a free market. They needed the government gun. But that was politically difficult in the open. Thus their hook-up with the left.
This was, please note, the religious left which sought to create the Kingdom of God on Earth through the state. But every horrible tendency enlisted against economic and personal freedom was to the benefit of the establishment.
Progressives promoted such evils as business regulation, welfare, alcohol prohibition, the drug war, public schools, attacks on the family, blue laws, conscription, militarism, central banking, income taxation, colonialism, empire, and perpetual war.
The first Progressive president — Teddy Roosevelt — was a special disaster. Vaulted into office by one of those convenient lone-nut assassins, TR was bloodthirsty and tyrannical. Even before his presidency, his aggression led to the murderous conquest of the Philippines.
Progressive Woodrow Wilson established the first fascist economy in America, openly run by big businesses, to intervene in WWI, which led directly to Lenin and later Hitler, among other evils.
Another Progressive was Herbert Hoover, the first New Dealer. FDR made it permanent.
Such is the power of The Progressive Era that, with your help, it can strike a huge blow for historical truth and economic sanity.
But how did this book come about? Through brilliant academic detective work in our giant Rothbard Archives by then-graduate student Patrick Newman.
Progressives afflict us from 100 directions these days. But they can be successfully battled with the help of Murray.
We want to unveil the book at the 35th anniversary of the Institute in October, which celebrates Murray’s life and work.
Won’t you help us get this persuasive and entertaining book in the hands of every student not brainwashed by the Progressives, and every citizen who hopes for a free and decent future?
Please make a generous, tax-deductible donation to the Institute to help us spread the word about what’s at the root of the modern corporate state, and help us undermine it.
If you can make a $500 donation, you will be listed in the front of this handsome work as a Donor; $1,000 as a Patron; $5,000 as a Benefactor.
Of course, we need gifts of all amounts. Please help! We need you.
