The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly "radical" ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason.
Having warned of the rise of national socialism and having fled the German army‘s march into Austria, Ludwig von Mises was in an excellent position to analyze Nazi economic doctrine.
"He loved liberty as other men love power," was the judgment passed on Benjamin Constant by a contemporary. His lifelong concern, both as a writer and politician, was the growth of human freedom.
Americans once dreamed of a country that did not care about global greatness or glory. It was within our reach if we had been wise enough to grasp and hold it.
As a human endeavor like any other, war making is the product of reason, purpose and choice. A proper analysis of war must take into account the goals of the war makers.
In fact, all great states in the 20th century have been killer states, to a greater or lesser degree.
The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime worse than any that Japanese generals were executed for in Tokyo and Manila. If Harry Truman was not a war criminal, then no one ever was.
A state without money or a state that must tax its citizens to raise money for its wars is necessarily limited in its imperial ambitions. Keep in mind that this is only a problem for the state.
If we could abolish public schools and compulsory schooling laws, we would have better schools at half the price—and be freer too.
While capitalism gives rise to prosperity and freedom, the state thrives on an economically ignorant public.
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.