[This article is excerpted from chapter 9 of The Rise and Fall of Society .] Dionysius, the storied tyrant of Syracuse, was a consummate financier. His gift stood him in good stead on the day he found himself in bankrupt condition, having borrowed from the citizenry more than he could repay. He might have increased taxes and satisfied his
[This article is excerpted from chapter 13 of The Rise and Fall of Society . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Floy Lilley, is available for download .] Foremost among the services which the State claims to render Society is its protection from other predatory States. This is a considerable service, to be sure. In former times, when
[From chapter 14 of The Rise and Fall of Society by Frank Chodorov .] The small State can do to Society everything the large State can do, but not so much of it. The tyranny and terrorism of modern communistic overlords is of a kind with the practices of ancient Sparta, and twenty-five centuries before Mr. Roosevelt launched the New Deal, Pericles
[From The Rise and Fall of Society by Frank Chodorov .] There is this to be said in behalf of avowed and doctrinaire socialists, that their faith in the State is sublime. To them, the institution of political power is the unerring shepherd of the flock, the guide to the Good Society; it is also the antidote for all evil, the maker of abundance,
[From The Rise and Fall of Society ] It is not incumbent on a diagnostician to prescribe a remedy, and it would be quackery for him to do so when he has misgivings as to its curative value. It may be that the struggle between Society and the State is inevitable; it may be in the nature of things for the struggle to continue until mutual
The search for a formula for the “good society” has never been abandoned, hope being what it is, and out of the laboratory of the human mind has come a congeries of utopias. The connotation of unreality that the word has acquired follows from the fact that every utopia ignores the central operating lever of man: he seeks to satisfy his desires
[This article is excerpted from The Rise and Fall of Society (1959). An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Keith Hocker, is available for download .] Anyone who speculates on man’s ability to put his social life in perfect order must take into account the biological fact of longevity. Man seeks to satisfy his desires while he lives, not
“Isolationism does not mean that they will not voluntarily borrow from other cultures nor that they will surround themselves with parochial walls.” [This article is excerpted from chapter 11 of Out of Step (1962). An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Brad O’Connell, is available for download .] When World War I broke out in 1914, the
[Chapter 17, Out of Step (1962). An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Steven Ng, is available for download . The reader might consider the further merits of Chodorov’s argument, given the existing federal debt of $12 trillion.] In 1800, the United States Treasury owed $83 million. The population was then three million. Every baby born that
[This article is excerpted from chapter 14 of Out of Step (1962). An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Steven Ng, is available for download .] In New York, in the fall of 1936, I happened in one night at the Players Club. As I sat at a table with a couple of men, I noticed a dignified, elderly gentleman playing pool. He was very
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.