As a senior in high school, back in 1977, I was introduced to the writings of Ayn Rand. Rand’s work had a huge impact on my intellectual development. That impact was not merely philosophical. In her essays, Rand celebrated the enormous contributions of the Austrian school. Not too long thereafter, I discovered such thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, F.
Here on the 87th anniversary of Woodrow Wilson’s declaration of war that ushered the United States into World War I, I think it is appropriate to resurrect some superb commentary from the great Ludwig von Mises in his book, Omnipotent Government : The fateful error that frustrated all the endeavors to safeguard peace was precisely that people did
The former head of HealthSouth said in court filings Monday that the Sarbanes-Oxley law he is accused of breaking is unconstitutional and that the government used it to file multiple charges for the same conduct to inflate the gravity of its case against him. According to the Birmingham News : T he other motion asks the court to dismiss the three
For all those closeted Keynesians still lurking out there touting the positive effects of government spending on economic growth, I offer this follow-up to Jeff Tucker’s post . An article in the NY Times states: Neither [political] party addressed the unexpected contribution of military spending to economic growth. It accounted for $17.4 billion
The July 2004 issue of Common-Place features an essay by Stephen Mihm, entitled “ Accept No Imitations: The Campaign Against Counterfeits, Past and Present .” Mihm discusses how, from colonial times to the Civil War, “counterfeiters operated with impunity,” becoming “folk heroes” because there was no central control over paper money issuance.
Chris Westley gets a letter from Kirkuk, Iraq, about his article : That was a great article on government employees, but perhaps I can add something that may help you understand why Marines (and other elite military) put those stickers on their vehicles. I’m a former Marine currently in the Army in Special Ops and there are a number of reasons why
There was a very good article in the NY Times today that serves as a kind of postscript to David J. Heinrich’s essay WSJ’s Taranto Slanders Ayn Rand Institute . Carol Adelman writes, in her article “ A High Quality of Mercy “ that the claim that the U.S. is “stingy” in foreign aid completely discounts the remarkable level of private aid that flows
A brief obituary appears in the New York Times , courtesy of The Associated Press: “ Robert Heilbroner, 85, Economist and Writer, Dies .” Absent from this brief death notice is, perhaps, one of Heilbroner’s most famous formulations. Upon the collapse of 20th century socialism, he said: “ Mises was right
Today, Christopher Shea has written a “Critical Faculties” piece for The Boston Globe focusing on “ Ayn Rand’s Campus Radicals ,” offering further evidence of the proliferation of Rand scholarship. He mentions my work and the work of other Rand scholars, as well as the important role of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies . (He cites a JARS essay by
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.