The Prussian Aristocrat Who Spoke Out for Liberty
When Oswald Spengler, in one of his minor books, scornfully characterized German classical liberalism as “a bit of the spirit of England on German soil,” he was merely displaying the willful blindness of the school of militaristic-statist German historians, who
Remember When Conservatives “Canceled” Anyone against the War on Terror? I Do.
Life in American changed twenty years ago after the 9/11 attacks. Many Americans became enraged at anyone who did not swear allegiance to President George W. Bush’s antiterrorism crusade. Anyone who denied “they hate us for our freedoms” automatically became
America’s Economy Is Heading Down the Same Road as Italy’s
In 2015, I came to the United States from Italy to study at Indiana University as part of an exchange program. I remember one day I was particularly surprised to discover that the State of Indiana had a AAA credit
The Prince of Denmark & the Insurgent of Kashmir
“I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”~Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1 Most Shakespearean tragedies follow certain sets of patterns and elements. These include vengeful ghosts, scenes where characters
A long night’s journey into catastrophe
Financial movies always portray sin and greed. Yet, we are always attracted to those few yet realistic movies. Mostly because we like to see the extremes with which humans operate in the world of cash that, for someone on the
Fears of Stagflation Loom as Job Growth Stalls
Job growth numbers on Friday failed to impress. Economists had predicted job growth in the area of 720,000, but according to the Department of Labor’s estimates, jobs growth for August was only a third of that: 235,000. Commentators on CNBC called
We Don’t Need a Central Bank to Deal with Changes in the “Demand for Money”
Historically, many different goods have been used as money. On this, Ludwig von Mises observed that, over time, . . . there would be an inevitable tendency for the less marketable of the series of goods used as media of exchange
How America Abandoned Decentralization and Embraced the State
Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776—1865. By Luigi Marco Bassani. Abbeville Institute Press, 2021. Vii + 356 pages. Marco Bassani is a historian of European political thought and it is from the perspective of his discipline that he
The Rise of Economic Fascism in America
When people hear the word “fascism” they naturally think of its ugly racism and anti-Semitism as practiced by the totalitarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. But there was also an economic policy component of fascism, known in Europe during the
When a Fallacy Isn’t Really a Fallacy
Students often ask me to recommend a good introduction to philosophy, and now the question can be answered more easily than in years past. Michael Huemer’s Knowledge, Value, and Reality, published last April, contains a profusion of arguments on important