eLibertarian
Affective Polarization Is Making Us Dumber
Last month, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University announced that it was laying off almost all of its staff, in spite of having received almost $55 million in funds in the last three years. Critics have jumped on Kendi’s fall to renew arguments that he’s a grifter or a “midwit,” but there’s another underappreciated aspect to Kendi’s fall. Kendi always struck me as someone who had the raw intellectual horsepower to succeed but whose rigid ideology pushed him towa
Making Money While Making Sense of Chaos: Understanding the World of the Traders
<div><p>Robert Murphy explains how traders make money in a world of uncertainty and diabolical risk.</p>
<p>Original Article: <a href="https://mises.org/wire/making-money-while-making-sense-chaos-understanding-world-traders" target="_blank">Making Money While Making Sense of Chaos: Understanding the World of the Traders</a></p></div>
The Fake China Threat
On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop are joined by Joseph Solis-Mullen of the Libertarian Institute to discuss his new book, The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger. Joseph debunks some of the most prominent myths about China, provides historical context for modern tensions, and outlines the real threats the "China myth" poses to Americans.
"So Much Hot Air: The (Fake) China Threat Strikes Again!" by Joseph Solis-Mullen: Mises.org/RR_158_A
"Taking Notes out of Ro
Blaming the Free Market (Even Where It Doesn't Exist)
Critics of the free market often aim at the wrong target. They assail the market for “failures” that are actually the result of government intervention in the economy. In this week’s column, I’d like to discuss an example of this mistake in Angus Deaton’s Economics in America (Princeton, 2023).
Deaton was the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for economics, about which he says:
As many previous recipients have reported, the experience is both exhilarating and overwhelming. I often think of the stor
A Nigerian Scholar Evangelizes Austrian Economics
"Econ Bro" (who wishes to remain anonymous) is a Nigerian scholar who realized the limits of his conventional economics training and then discovered the work of Murray Rothbard and other Austrians. He now seeks to help his country and the world by spreading the truth.
Econ Bro's Article on The State as a Rejection of God Part 1: Mises.org/HAP420a
Econ Bro's Article on The State as a Rejection of God Part 2: Mises.org/HAP420b
Human Action Podcast listeners can get a free copy of Per Bylund's Ho
Don't Fall for Biden's Latest Talking Point
<div><p>President Biden claims that spending money to send weapons and ammunition around the world is good for the US economy.</p>
<p>Original Article: <a href="https://mises.org/wire/dont-fall-bidens-latest-talking-point" target="_blank">Don't Fall for Biden's Latest Talking Point</a></p></div>
Liberty: Stifled by the Stockholm Syndrome
“Whenever and however [government] is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.” (emphasis added)
—John Jay, “Federalist No. 2”
“Like breathing, [government] is not permitted to depend on our volition. Necessity will force it on all communities in some one form or another.”
—John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain—that it has either author
Normalizing Ugliness and Subversion
I’ve often wondered what someone who grew up in Vienna would think if he were suddenly transported to once beautiful San Francisco and confronted with the spectacle of thousands of homeless people living on sidewalks and using them as latrines.
I believe he would be so shocked by the squalor, ruin, and indignity of it that he would scarcely believe it possible in a country that considers itself civilized. He would literally say to himself, “This can’t be real.”
For a while in the 1990s, the City
Current Leaders in North America and Western Europe Are destroying the System That Underpinned Their Own Prosperity
We in Russia are very fond of appealing to such a concept as the “global majority” – these are countries of the world that link their development to the main trends of globalization, but are capable of expressing their own views on fair forms of international order. Up to now, this notion has been expressed rather discreetly, which is explained by our common participation in a system of relations in which Western countries not only played a leading role, but were also able, until a certain point
A World Where Genocide of Civilians Is Not Only Accepted, but Cheered
“In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die.
Every time a bomb falls, every time shrapnel hits our graves,
every time the rubble piles up on our heads,
we are awakened from our temporary death.”
~ Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza
I wish I could say that this world of genocide, democide, torture, terror, and slaughter of innocents was something new, but of course it is not. The story of mankind is one of horrible brutality, and it is never-ending. The latest at
TikTok: The Young People’s Window to the World
I have just returned from a family trip to Japan. This trip was the dream of my 15-year old daughter. She had studied and planned this trip for many months. In fact, she organized all of the itinerary and guided us through the streets and transportation systems of Tokyo and Kyoto like a local. Daily itineraries were planned geographically using Google Maps to optimize our time. I will not deny that this information can be categorized as the boring drivel of a proud father of no interest to other
Trump’s Base Is Everyday Americans, Not Fringe Extremists
One of the most frequently repeated narratives of the last few years has been that most of Donald Trump’s support comes from a far-right fringe of MAGA extremists.
These would be roughly the same people whom Hillary Clinton unforgettably described in 2016 as a “basket of deplorables”. According to her, they are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic.” As she put it, they are “irredeemable.”
Last month, Hillary Clinton poured more fuel on the narrative of Trump’s supporters bein
Our Greatest Ally? I Doubt It
From the Tom Woods Letter:
I lost some subscribers yesterday, which I expected. But I’m still here and all is well.
One person accused me of a “double standard” because all lobbying groups pursue their interests. So why was I singling out AIPAC?
How about because AIPAC smeared the most principled and courageous U.S. congressman we have? Is that answer sufficient for the police?
I wouldn’t say there’s exactly been a shortage of criticisms of other lobbying groups — the military-industrial complex
The Adults in the Room
What’s wrong with this picture?
“The symbols of freedom and equality that battle during the life of an individual also have a correspondence to their battle in culture. American history in the 20th century offers a good example of this battle between the symbols of freedom and equality.” — John Fraim, Midnight Oil Studios.
We were the first and only nation, Mr. Fraim asserts, to stake a claim at the perilous intersection of opposing symbols — equality and freedom — via foundational proclamation
Legal Foundations of a Free Society
[This article is the foreword to Stephan Kinsella’s, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023)]
The question as to what is justice and what constitutes a just society is as old as philosophy itself. Indeed, it arises in everyday life even long before any systematic philosophizing is to begin.
All throughout intellectual history, one prominent answer to this question has been to say that it is “might” that makes “right.” Or more specifically: that what is right or
Some Thoughts for Americans as Our Government Assists Israel in Gaza
We Americans take our duties to life on Earth seriously. We feed, house, and monitor our plants and our animals. When they are sick, we take special and devoted care of them.
Our animals need water and access to appropriate and healthy food – not only an important daily task, but a task required by law. In our small rural county we have three full time taxpayer-funded animal control officers, who have no qualms about following up on reports of mistreatment or insufficient care and feeding of ou
The Future for Fiat
The day of reckoning for unproductive credit is in sight. With G7 national finances spiralling out of control, debt traps are being sprung on all of them, with the sole exception of Germany.
Malinvestments of the last fifty years are being exposed by the rise in interest rates, increases which are driven by a combination of declining faith in the value of major currencies and contracting bank credit. The rise in interest rates is becoming unstoppable.
Do not be surprised to see a US Government d
Back to the Future Morphs into Dystopia
<div><p>Thanks to the exponential growth of government and regulation, the optimistic society of <em>Back to the Future</em> is fast becoming the dystopian world of <em>Escape from New York </em>or <em>Death Wish.</em></p>
<p>Original Article: <a href="https://mises.org/wire/back-future-morphs-dystopia" target="_blank">Back to the Future Morphs into Dystopia</a></p></div>
Coauthor of War College Journal Article Tries to Backtrack on Call for "Partial Conscription"
At the end of September, I reported how a recent article in the Army War College academic journal examined lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and that one of the most concerning was the claim that the military might need to reinstate the draft in order to wage a high-intensity war. I argued at length that this was an example of the military laying the groundwork to resume the draft and laid out the reasons why it might be necessary from the regime’s perspective.
This report garnered a good
The Current US Economic Situation from an Austrian Viewpoint
This article is a brief analysis of the US economic situation from the point of view of the Austrian School of Economics. It is strictly macroeconomic: a deductive hypothesis of what is happening in the aggregates.
Let us place ourselves in the months immediately after the arrival of covid-19, the first quarter of 2020. As an economic policy measure, the US government decided to increase the money supply. Through different mechanisms, they put an unprecedented amount of money into the economy. T