Mises Wire readers are probably familiar with nineteenth-century American proto-libertarian Lysander Spooner (1808–87). Spooner’s radical challenges to statism are best summed up by the title of Murray Rothbard’s edited collection of Spooner’s greatest writings: Let’s Abolish Government . Spooner was a great American , an anarchist committed to
In late May we learned that, after a five-month deployment to one of the most dangerous cities in the world, the American military would finally be going home. Well, not really. They already were home. The dangerous warzone was the American federal capital, Washington, DC. And the “danger” that the military was supposed to be countering was
Review of Michael Kulikowski, Imperial Triumph: The Roman World from Hadrian to Constantine (London: Profile Books, 2016) and Imperial Tragedy: From Constantine’s Empire to the Destruction of Roman Italy (London: Profile Books, 2019) When English historian Edward Gibbon wrote his history of “the decline and fall of the Roman Empire” in the late
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in the last week of February 2022 was the culmination of decades of transnational statist expansion. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which managers of the postwar Washington-centered imperium set up to counter Communist imperialism coordinated from Moscow, was rendered obsolete
The standard history of post-Soviet Russia goes something like this. During the Soviet era, there were no real prices because of the Communists’ incessant, blanket meddling in economic activity. Nobody knew what anything was really worth. Not a loaf of bread, not a mine full of uranium. It was all owned and redistributed by the state. When the
On June 19, 2022, geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer posted the following on Twitter: us: left govt, high inflation uk: right govt, high inflation germany: centrist govt, high inflation italy: everyone in govt, high inflation wild guess it’s not the govt — ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) June 19, 2022 In a follow-up tweet the next day, Bremmer wrote: 1 -
“Follow the money.” This is a common watchword among those distrustful of the state. If you want to know what politicians or state institutions are really up to, the common wisdom goes, you have to stop listening to what statists do and say, and start paying attention to who is paying them to do and say it. Following the money is an excellent
Many are dismayed that the American military and intelligence complex has gone woke. “White supremacy” brainwashing at West Point, “white rage” handwringing by the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “cisgender millennial” CIA agents with anxiety disorders, and a “rainbow bullets” recruiting ad from the United States Marine Corps . What happened
“Democracy is under attack!” I wish I had a fiat nickel for every time I heard some variation of this panic-line these past half-dozen years. Trump will destroy our democracy! Our sacred democracy is under assault! Mostly peaceful protesters are in the streets trying to protect our besieged democracy! Rioters stormed the Capitol to take down our
In recent weeks Americans have been debating, and appalled by, the Disinformation Governance Board set up by the Department of Homeland Security. The Disinformation Governance Board was established by the government to counter “disinformation” and present the “correct” view of current events. The Disinformation Governance Board was “paused” by the
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.