In his famous 1898 essay, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain,” the great Yale University libertarian scholar William Graham Sumner argued that America had crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, and had become an imperialistic empire. It had become the Spanish empire. But Sumner was only half right. The conquest of Cuba was an imperialistic
Thomas DiLorenzo’s Mises Academy class on imperialism and anti-imperialism begins tonight, September 9, and continues for five weeks. Register now. After the American “Civil War,” the Republican Party, which for the succeeding half century would enjoy monopolistic political power matched only by the Bolsheviks in Russia, set about to deify Abraham
In a January 30 column David Brooks, the house neoconservative of the New York Times , urged Obama to ignore both his socialist/egalitarian base and the “conservative tradition that believes in limiting government to enhance freedom.” Obama already has nothing but hateful contempt for the latter tradition and needs no convincing by a right-wing
The Free Market 14, no. 1 (January 1996) The Gold Standard Act of 1890, which officially established the gold standard in America, was the culmination of a twenty-year battle between inflationists, who favored unlimited government purchase of silver (the “Free Silver” movement), and the advocates of sound money based on the gold standard. The
The Free Market 14, no. 4 (April 1996) Leftist critics of capitalism like Labor Secretary Robert Reich have criticized the alleged shortsightedness of American corporations, while praising the supposedly longer-range perspectives of their Japanese competitors. Well, the Nissan Motor Corporation just proved that it can be every bit as
The Free Market 14, no. 5 (May 1996) The 1996 blizzard dumped three feet of snow on the Washington, D.C., area. The event proved once again that statist economists, armed with their “market failure” theories, perceive reality exactly the opposite from the way it is. It is government, not the free market, that is inherently plagued with
The Free Market 14, no. 6 (June 1996) The death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in a Balkans plane crash exposed the real reason President Clinton sent American troops to Bosnia: to make the world safe for corporate welfare. An aspect of the so-called Dayton Peace Accords, which led to the deployment of U.S. troops, was an initial installment of
The Free Market 14, no. 7 (July 1996) The media often cite economists on why taxes should be cut. For example, the Wall Street Journal reports “widespread agreement” among economists that federal gas taxes are too low. And the Washington Post cites the “authority” of economists who says a $500-per child tax credit is “fiscal snake oil.” Why do
The Free Market 14, no. 10 (October 1996) Pizza deliverers have been robbed, assaulted, and killed. To protect their employees, and hold down liability losses, pizza chains like Domino’s won’t deliver pizzas in the highest crime areas. The company has cleverly developed computer software that allows its franchises to “flag” addresses that are
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.