Given Dwight Lee’s stalwart free enterprise credentials, it is more than passingly curious that the title of his 1998 Presidential Address to the Southern Economic Association was “In Defense of Excessive Government.” Volume 16, Number 3 (2002) Walter, Block. “All Government is Excessive: A Rejoinder to Dwight Lee’s “In Defense of Excessive
The Chicago School of Economics is seen far and wide as a free enterprise stronghold. The research programs of many of its members are extolled as supportive of capitalism, even by otherwise knowledgeable commentators. This article will show that such an evaluation cannot be supported, at least in the case of Henry Simons, one of the most eminent
The Declaration of Independence maintains that: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. If what is meant by this is that people should have the right not to be murdered, their
Frank van Dun, in his article “Against Libertarian Legalism,” criticizes prior articles by N. Stephan Kinsella and me. Although his article constitutes, in part, a radical if not blistering attack on my prior article, at least it has the merit of fully understanding that which it criticizes. All too often, negative appraisals of libertarianism
In his article “Natural Law and the Jurisprudence of Freedom,” my friend and colleague Frank van Dun offers two options as my possible categorizations of his views: “anti-libertarian” or “confusion and inconsistency on the part of a libertarian sympathiser.”1 Given these two sharp alternatives, I choose the second, for I certainly do not consider
In the present article, it is my goal to critically comment on Caplan’s most recent argument. The next section is devoted to Probability and Science, followed by a section on Synthetic a priori and Common Sense, and then a section on Caplan’s Bayesian Cure. Volume 19, Number 1 (2005) Block, Walter. “Rejoinder to Caplan on Bayesian Economics.”
Randy Holcombe’s “Government: unnecessary but Inevitable” (2004) is an interesting and challenging, but ultimately fallacious, essay on government. In his view, this institution is “unnecessary, but inevitable.” Volume 19, Number 3 (2005) Block, Walter. “Governmental Inevitability: Reply to Holcombe.” Journal of Libertarian Studies 19, No. 3
According to Walter Block, Kevin Carson’s (2004) Studies in Mutualist Political Economy is an infuriating book. In this article, he explains why. Volume 20, Number 1 (2006) Block, Walter. “Kevin Carson as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Journal of Libertarian Studies 20, No. 1 (2006):
When I first received Milton Friedman’s letter in response to my article “Hayek’s Road to Serfdom” I did not realize it would lead to more. Over the past few years I have shared these letters with several colleagues, friends, and students. However, such are his fame and accomplishments that I thought these back and forth letters might be of
In Volume 26, number 3, of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy , my article appears: “Private Property Rights, Economic Freedom, and Professor Coase: A Critique of Friedman, McCloskey, and Zorn.”
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.
