It may be that wary beasts of the forest come around to accepting the hunter’s trap as a necessary concomitant of foraging for food. At any rate, the presumably rational human animal has become so inured to political interventions that he cannot think of the making of a living without them; in all his economic calculations his first consideration
Wherever two boys swap tops for marbles, that is the marketplace. The simple barter, in terms of human happiness, is no different from a trade transaction involving banking operations, insurance, ships, railroads, wholesale and retail establishments; for in any case the effect and purpose of trade is to make up a lack of satisfactions. The boy
[From One is a Crowd , by Frank Chodorov, 1952.] It all began, as you know, with the Declaration of Independence. The Americans stated their case, both as to the disabilities put upon them by the British Crown and as to the kind of government they considered it fitting for men to live under. The indictment was rejected and the issue was joined in
[Writing about Frank Chodorov, Murray Rothbard wrote , “Frank’s final flowering was his last ideological testament, the brilliantly written The Rise and Fall of Society , published in 1959, at the age of 72.” What follows is the introduction.] What history will think of our times is something that only history will tell. But it is a good
“I have led a singularly uneventful life, largely solitary, have had little to do with the great and no part whatever in their affairs, or for that matter, in any other affairs.” So wrote Albert Jay Nock in the preface to his last book, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man . He wasn’t being modest; he meant it. And he did not believe anybody would
“The Judgment of Solomon” Gustave Doré (1832–1883) “In those days,” we are told in Judges 17:6, “there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” To be able to do that which is right in one’s own eyes is to be free, and freedom was the way of life among the Israelites before the coming of the kings. Yet,
[This article is excerpted from One Is a Crowd . Robert LeFevre also gave a lecture on the biblical Joseph: “First Secretary of Agriculture” ( available in MP3 in Mises Media ).] Long, long before Freud, a fellow named Joseph got himself a reputation as an interpreter of dreams. So, when all the PhD’s of Egypt failed him, Pharaoh sent for this
[This article is excerpted from chapter one of The Rise and Fall of Society .] It may be that wary beasts of the forest come around to accepting the hunter’s trap as a necessary concomitant of foraging for food. At any rate, the presumably rational human animal has become so inured to political interventions that he cannot think of the making of a
[Chapter XVIII, Out of Step ] The dogma that the State or the Government is the embodiment of all that is good and beneficial and that the individuals are wretched underlings, exclusively intent upon inflicting harm upon one another and badly in need of a guardian, is almost unchallenged. It is taboo to question it in the slightest way. He who
[This article is excerpted from chapter two of The Rise and Fall of Society .] Is the State ordered in the nature of things? The classical theorists in political science were so persuaded. Observing that every agglomeration of humans known to history was attended with a political institution of some kind, and convinced that in all human affairs
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.