The case of Terri Schiavo is almost as controversial as it is tragic. In 1990 Mrs. Schiavo, who reached her 40th year in 2005, fell victim to brain damage. She has been in a vegetative state ever since, kept alive not under her own power, but aided by a welter of feeding tubes and other paraphernalia of modern medicine. The controversy? Her
Did you ever hear the phrase, “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” This aphorism applies to several “defenses” of the free enterprise system we could all richly do without. In section one we consider an invalid argument for legalizing addictive drugs. Section two is given over to an analysis of foreign aid, from this perspective. The
Libertarianism has been widely misunderstood, and the present essay under review is no exception. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a philosophy of life. It essentially asks but one single solitary question, and gives one single, solitary answer. The question: under what conditions is the use of force or violence legally justified? And
Although the present paper is dedicated to a highly critical examination of Hoppe’s contributions to the field of immigration, we readily acknowledge at the outset that here, too, even though we cannot see our way clear to agreeing with his conclusions, his splendid, imaginative, and ingenious “footprints” can readily be seen. Volume 21, Number 3
Holcombe (2004) argued that government was inevitable. In Block (2005) I maintained that this institution was not unavoidable. Holcombe (2007) takes issue with that response of mine to his earlier paper, and the present essay is, in turn, a response to his latest missive in this conversation. Volume 21, Number 1 (2007) Block, Walter. “Rejoinder
I agree entirely with Ralph . The only “trouble” with Guido’s book is that, as long as it is, it should have been twice as long. I very greatly regretted finishing reading it. I wanted more. Happily, Guido is a very young man, and we can expect more great things from him in
What could these two thinkers, considered to be opposites, have in common? It turns out that Karl Marx inherits from Adam Smith a very basic error, one which has monumental consequences and has changed the world forever. Adam Smith tells us in his famous treatise on the wealth of nations that in primitive conditions or small towns, those who would
According to the National Post today: Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average
According to Terry L. Anderson and Daniel Botkin, “ Fighting Western Fires with Economics ” is a good idea. Were I writing an essay with this title, I would emphasize the role of private property rights. If all forests were owned by individuals and private corporations, those that did well in protecting their trees from conflagrations would
Summary By Luis Rivera III: Many people are under the false impression that the oil spill that occurred in April of 2010 was due to a lack of regulations. One of these individuals is Thomas Frank, a journalist from The Wall Street Journal . In this lecture Walter Block offers a rebuttal to this absurd claim. He sheds light on the fact that 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.
