No matter how many times you have read a book by Ludwig von Mises or Murray Rothbard, you will find new insights if you read the book again. I found this to be true when preparing for Rothbard Graduate Seminar (RGS) this year. One of our readings was Rothbard’s For a New Liberty , and this year some of Rothbard’s arguments that I hadn’t
Nationalism is a potent force in the modern world, and it is not surprising that some libertarians have been attracted to it. Indeed, in some circles the slogan “Blood and Soil” has come into to use to denote a people’s attachment to the land. It should be noted that although this slogan was used by the Nazis, especially by Walter Darré, it did
After the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, many socialists, reluctant to abandon their socialist convictions, shifted to a belief in “market socialism.” The great Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen was not among them, and in this week’s column, I’d like to examine what he says about market socialism in his essay “The Future of a
Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936–1986 by James Rosen Regnery Publishing, 2023 496 pages James Rosen, who has written biographies of John Mitchell and Dick Cheney, and was for many years a reporter for Fox News, has found an ideal biographical subject in Antonin Scalia,, who served for thirty years on the Supreme Court. The volume under review, the
Is Social Justice Just? Edited by Robert M. Whaples, Michael C. Munger, and Christopher J. Coyne Independent Institute, 2023; xxiii + 348 pp. Before one can answer the question posed by this excellent book’s title, one needs to ask what social justice is, and answering this proves to be no easy task. As Robert Whaples says, “For many, the term
Michael Huemer has made my life easier. One of my tasks at the Mises Institute is to teach praxeology to students, and doing so involves explaining a priori knowledge (i.e., what we can know just by thinking about it), a notion which many students find difficult to grasp. The task becomes even harder when you add that the a priori knowledge in
Up from Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right after a Generation of Decay Edited by Arthur Milikh Encounter Books, 2023; 328 pp. The contributors to Up from Conservatism , most of whom are associated with the Claremont Institute, think that “movement” conservatism has failed, in large part through acceptance of the premises of the Left. The Right
In his just-published book Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (Sentinel, 2023), the political theorist Patrick J. Deneen indicts modern liberalism, in which he includes both classical liberalism and progressive liberalism. One of his main charges against liberalism is that it rejects the view, taught both by Christianity and classical
Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality by David Edmonds Princeton, 2023; xx + 380 pp. The British philosopher Derek Parfit ranks as one of the most influential moral philosophers of the past century. But as David Edmonds says in his outstanding biography of him, Parfit was a “philosopher’s philosopher” who did not write for the
Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time by Noam Chomsky, edited by C.J. Polychroniou Haymarket Books, 2023; x + 330 pp. Noam Chomsky is universally respected for his contributions to linguistics and to the philosophy of mind, but he is a “public intellectual” as well, and it is in the public arena that opinion about him is
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.