Mises Search

Imagine that you are blindfolded and told that the food you are about to eat is ice cream. It turns out to be chicken liver. Or imagine that you think you are diving into warm water but instead it turns out to be near-freezing. This is pretty much what it is like to be governed by Republicans, and there is no better case in point than George W.

When people talk of a movement, they almost invariably mean a political movement. It is easy to be a political movement. You only need to care about elections even in the off season, and identify your cause with some pressure group well represented in Washington. If you do these two things, you will be a movement. I suppose this is why I’ve never

A strange culture of emergency has taken over this country, and the slightest provocation triggers it. It could be an expected terrorist or just an old-fashioned weather warning. The officials are quick to swing into action, and tell you what to do. The problem is that these demands are often based on nothing other than government plans that are

Ron Paul has always believed that foreign and domestic policy should be conducted according to the same principles. Government should be restrained from intervening at home or abroad because its actions fail to achieve their stated aims, create more harm than good, shrink the liberty of the people, and violate rights. Does that proposition seem

Events such as the massacre at Virginia Tech set off national discussions on the problem of evil. There are two aspects to this: moral and social. Another way to put it is: how does such an impulse come to reside in a particular person and unleash itself in ghastly ways? The part that impacts on politics and economics is the second consideration:

Interviewed by Jedrzej Kuskowski for the Polish Libertarian Website Liberalis KUSKOWSKI : Your site, LewRockwell.com , is greatly popular and is still growing. The internet has proven to be an invaluable tool in the hands of libertarians. What has your experience shown you to be the most important for a growing movement: individual blogs,

During the 1990s, many of us complained bitterly about rule by the Left. We were outraged at how the Clinton administration had so much faith in government’s ability to bring about universal fairness and equality. Government, we were told, would make right all relations between groups, equalize access to health care, curb every corporate abuse,

It’s wonderful to have visions and dreams, but thoroughly evil and destructive when we seek to have government accomplish them on our behalf. The means, not the dream, is the problem. It ends up taking away liberty and creating unanticipated forms of destruction. This is the great lesson that economics has to teach us, but it is evident that the

Ludwig von Mises said that the great accomplishment of economists was to draw attention to the extreme limits on the power of government. His point was not merely that government should be limited, but that it is limited by the very structure of reality. It cannot make all people rich by its own initiative. It cannot provide universal housing,

[ Rockwell’s note from 2007: I wrote this article on commission in 1986. It celebrates the work of Rothbard, Hazlitt, and Hutt. All three economists were living but largely and tragically forgotten at the time. Today, their books are selling and their influence is wide indeed. It’s not appeared online before. ] To most Americans, economists don’t