Bolshevism and Democratic Socialism
The 1917 Revolution gave birth to both the reality and the myth of the Bolsheviks and the democratic left. The social democrats rejected the violence which was part of the communist party. They claimed...
View ArticleGreat Society and the Republican Welfare State
Thomas Sowell’s book, Civil Rights, lays bare many of the myths of the Great Society. What did ordinary people do before an advanced welfare state? Anti-poverty programs like the 1965 Job Corps did not...
View ArticleCivil Rights and Statism
Several court cases must be mentioned. Each makes a point. Plessey v. Ferguson: Segregation Separate but equal is ok. Brown v. Board of Education: Separate schools are inherently unequal. Green v....
View ArticleAnti-Federalist Traditions until the Civil War
Jeffersonian States Rights Doctrine until the Civil War was grounded in three freedom documents: The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, and The Treaty of Paris of 1783. Those...
View ArticleThe Progressive Era
The Progressive Era covered the turn of the 19th-20th centuries until about WWI. It delivered such delights as the Federal Reserve. Accelerated statism with a philosophical veneer favored experts on...
View ArticleNatural Rights
Natural law does not depend directly on God’s will. Natural law goes back to at least the scholastics and perhaps Thomas Aquinas. Modern Natural Rights theory began in 1625. Modern theory recognizes...
View ArticleColonial America and the American Revolution
Albion’s Seed is a great book about the four migration folkways into the colonies from Great Britain during 1629 through 1775. The groups had many characteristics in common which may be what made...
View ArticleHistorians and the Welfare-Warfare State
Murray Rothbard popularized the concept of the welfare-warfare state. He didn’t like either of them. He knew that if the state was doing anything there was plunder involved. Welfare was any handout...
View ArticleThe National Security State
The warfare state does not want peace, it wants war. Conducting a permanent war requires three things. There must be an underlying convincing belief that the war is worthwhile. Some interest groups...
View ArticleThe Rise of the American Empire
One of the problems of the American Empire is that there is a lot of empire denial going around. You cannot want to rule the world and yet say that what you value is laissez-faire economics (like...
View ArticleThe New Deal
Certain themes that relate to the New Deal between 1933 and 1938 ended in 1938 when FDR moved on to repair all the problems of the world, not just the country. The Congress and the people were...
View ArticlePuritan Revolution and Republicanism
The transforming ideology of the American Revolution consists of four elements: liberalism, republicanism, English law, and Protestantism. Liberalism was developed by the Levellers, saying that natural...
View ArticleHistorians, the State and Liberty
The opinion that is dished out in textbooks every year by academic historians is ideologically mostly left-liberalism or left-radicalism. The effect of this is to bias what is written, especially with...
View ArticleTheory and History
Economic theory is essential for understanding history. It is difficult to interpret data without economic theory. Theory cannot come from data. All states are aggressive. All wars require economic...
View ArticleThe Role of the Intellectuals
The role of the intellectual is a perennial question. Why do they act the way they do? Why are they hostile to the free market? Is the state really virtuous and the market really vicious? Mises thought...
View ArticleSouthern Secession and Reconstruction
You can’t take Southern secession seriously because of slavery. Illinois is worth pondering because Lincoln supported the laws against blacks because he did not think that free blacks could ever mix...
View ArticleThe History of Taxation
Charles Adams is a rare tax historian who leads us back to Greeks and Romans and the history of liberty. The Battle of Marathon was critical for Greek civilization to seize control of Western...
View ArticleClassical Liberal Historians
People learn their political views through what they believe about history. Memorials function to push certain interpretations, e.g. about the War Between the States and the greatness of rulers like...
View ArticleThe US Constitution
This is a federal constitution. Federalism is the most important idea for liberty. You must maximize your choices and you need meaningful choices, made against a cultural background. Federalism...
View ArticleOrigins of Science in the Age of Faith
Lessl’s field is rhetoric. The history of the relationship between faith and science shifted when the theological nucleus was removed and science was inserted. Rhetoric was left behind. Faith was...
View ArticleStalinism, National Socialism, and Fascism
WWI was a kind of turning point. Bolshevism, National Socialism and fascism are related ideologies which surfaced after the war. Fascism was the wave of the future in 1920 with its notion of government...
View ArticleThe Rise of the Nation-State
Most of what is said about nation-states is not true. They are neither democracies nor republics nor nations nor states. There is no natural relationship between government and state. Men have been...
View ArticleOrigins of War: Civil War and World War I
Mises was well-versed in history, but many economists are not. History must be understood and revised. Wilson distorted the truth about how America entered WWI. The propaganda was not to be questioned....
View ArticleIntellectual Origins of Natural Rights
There was a natural law tradition from antiquity and the middle ages. Natural law is the oldest and most frequently used concept of political theory. Natural law is the principles that are to be...
View ArticleThe Rise of the West
The European Miracle was one in which humans achieved sustained growth for the first time on earth. Why Europe? Because of European decentralization and private enterprise. Property rights were...
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