Property rights, the division of labor, and voluntary exchange are the foundation of civilization. In Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, Ludwig von Mises explains why these doctrines are essential to civilization, emphasizing that peace is a prerequisite for the division of labor and human cooperation. When the threat of war constantly hangs over a society, people no longer specialize in their most productive skills and abilities. Instead, they devote all their efforts to becoming self-sufficient in everything they need to survive, as they have no expectation of being able to trade with their foes for anything they might need. Mises therefore highlights “the incompatibility between war and the division of labor.”This does not mean that we must all be pacifists—on the contrary, Mises

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.

A popular quote from Nicolás Gómez Dávila, “Dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies,” reflects the idea that a healthy and mature society should not be preoccupied with constantly creating new laws, prescribing to itself a cocktail of legislative remedies to fix its mounting problems. An over-lawyered society is a society in decay. Everything is disputed. There are sharp divisions, exacerbated by a dishonest and hypocritical façade of “shared values” that only mask the deepening hostility. The growing raft of new legislation is intended to shore up crumbling institutions, and also to give new legal weaponry to the different factions waging increasingly acrimonious lawfare among themselves. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines lawfare as “the use of legal

In Against the State, Lew Rockwell explains how the constant expansion of state power is often justified as a necessary means of achieving the dreams and visions of voters. In its relentless pursuit of power, the state has a strong incentive to focus on the problems that are likely to resonate most deeply with voters and, hence, most likely to persuade them to vest increasing control of their lives in the state. Statists embrace “the moral high ground” in justifying schemes designed to protect people from all manner of social problems. Rockwell observes that “the goal of the state is to find some practice that is universally reviled and pose as the one and only way of expunging it from society.” Key among the reviled practices the state is now dedicated to expunging from society, as the

Murray Rothbard conceptualized liberty as an emanation of property rights and self-ownership. Freedom of association is, therefore, best understood as “a subset of private property rights.” Just as property rights are absolute and limited only by respect for other people’s property rights, freedom of association is absolute and constrained only by other people’s freedom to associate or not associate with whom they will. Unless we are all to live as slaves, human interaction should always be voluntary. The correct ethical principle is that no one should be forced to associate or not associate with others against his or her will. It follows that the antidiscrimination principle is incompatible with freedom of association. The civil rights framework of rules based on “protected grounds” such

The presumption of liberty is an established liberal tradition according to which any restrictions on individual liberty require justification. Gerald Gaus and Shaun Nichols depict this as a principle of “natural liberty,” a “general presumption in favor of freedom of action.” As they explain, if natural liberty is a general presumption we expect, it to be reflected in,…shared normative expectations about what one may or may not do, and what one can demand that others refrain from, or must do, and shared empirical expectations as to whether people will conform to these rules.During the Covid lockdowns, one of the most pernicious challenges to this presumption came, not directly from state edicts, but through intermediaries—busybodies who took it upon themselves to monitor others. The

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.

In tyrannical societies, the state uses its monopoly of violence to dictate what citizens are permitted to say, activities they are permitted to engage in, and cultural symbols they are permitted to celebrate or display. Anyone who violates such edicts can be arrested and imprisoned. Given the tendency of states to become increasingly dictatorial and to trample on their citizens’ liberties with impunity, Murray Rothbard argued that the state itself, by its very nature, is a threat to liberty. In The Anatomy of the State, he argues that the state is a predator: “The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property” including predation of all the liberties that emanate from self-ownership.Even for those who support the minimal state, they would

Many historians have commented on the extent to which Abraham Lincoln centralized federal power in the course of his war against the South. Less often remarked upon is the fact that this trend continued during the Reconstruction era, 1865 to 1877. In his essay “Wichita Justice? On Denationalizing the Courts,” Murray Rothbard observes that the Reconstruction Era provided convenient cover for the expansion of federal authority and further centralization of political power. One striking example of this was the new laws introduced to tackle “racial hate,” in particular to counteract the emergence of white militia groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.The Ku Klux Klan Act was passed “to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other

Various justifications have been advanced by those removing or destroying Confederate monuments to explain why they deem it necessary to dismantle the Confederate heritage. For example, the memorial to Zebulon Vance in Asheville, North Carolina was demolished on grounds that it was “a painful symbol of racism.” In the tumult surrounding the Black Lives Matter riots, “168 Confederate symbols were removed across the United States.” In 2020 the Mississippi flag was changed to replace the Confederate “stars and bars” with a new symbol of a magnolia flower: [Governor Tate Reeves] signed into law a measure that removes the flag that has flown over the state for 126 years and been at the heart of a conflict Mississippi has grappled with for generations: how to view a legacy that traces to the

As Democrats and Republicans both express support for tariffs, the economic implications of protectionist policies are once again at the forefront of public debate. Both parties differ on the size of their proposed tariffs, but the New York Times reports that “both Democrats and Republicans are expressing support for tariffs to protect American industry, reversing decades of trade thinking in Washington.” Proposals to impose tariffs on imports from China seem to be particularly attractive to both red and blue voters:The tariffs have proved popular with industries that have faced stiff competition from Chinese firms, like makers of kitchen cabinets…the industry realized that Chinese companies had taken over about 40 percent of the market and that their share was continuing to grow.In

Ludwig von Mises depicts the aim of revolutionary socialism as: “to clear the ground for building up a new civilization by liquidating the old one.” One of the main strategies in liquidating a civilization involves dismantling its legal and philosophical foundations. This role is fulfilled by activists who embark upon “sabotage and revolution” by subverting the meaning of words: “The socialists have engineered a semantic revolution in converting the meaning of terms into their opposite.”George Orwell famously called this subversive language “Newspeak.” Peter Foster describes Newspeak as “a sort of totalitarian Esperanto that sought gradually to diminish the range of what was thinkable by eliminating, contracting, and manufacturing words.” Mises explains that dictators express their ideas

In The Betrayal of the American Right, Rothbard asks “how many Americans realize that, not so long ago, the American right wing was almost the exact opposite of what we know today?” Describing the American Old Right, Tom Woods explains that:…the Old Right drew inspiration from the likes of H.L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock, and featured such writers, thinkers, and journalists as Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, John T. Flynn, Garet Garrett, Felix Morley, and the Chicago Tribune’s Colonel Robert McCormick. They did not describe or think of themselves as conservatives: they wanted to repeal and overthrow, not conserve.The Old Right was steeped in the ideals of liberty including free speech, freedom of association, and self-determination, which inspired their desire to overthrow tyranny.

Many people were shocked when over 1,000 protesters were arrested in the UK and jailed for various offenses including “violent disorder” and stirring up racial hatred. Most shocking were the cases of those arrested for posting social media comments on the riots, despite not being present at the scene and there being no evidence that anybody who joined in the riots had read any of their comments.In societies which uphold the value of individual liberty, the only purpose of the criminal law should be to restrain and punish those who commit acts of aggression against other people or their property. The criminal law should not be used to prevent people from “hating” others or to force them to “love” each other. In announcing yet another raft of laws “to expand the list of charges eligible to

It might seem like common sense to say that good ideas should be clear, but the notion that good ideas should be obscure and inaccessible to laymen has long been prevalent in academic circles. Murray Rothbard describes Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money as, “not truly revolutionary at all but merely old and oft-refuted mercantilist and inflationist fallacies dressed up in shiny new garb, replete with newly constructed and largely incomprehensible jargon.” Rothbard remarks that, “Often, as in the case of both Ricardo and Keynes, the more obscure the content, the more successful the book, as younger scholars flock to it, becoming acolytes.”Similarly, Hunter Lewis in his introduction to W.H. Hutt’s The Theory of Idle Resources describes Keynes’s work as “a potpourri of

In March 2024 Alabama enacted a law “to prohibit certain public entities from maintaining diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and from sponsoring diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.” The law will come into force in October 2024. Similarly, anti-woke law in Florida provides that “subjecting individuals to specified concepts under certain circumstances constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”Many libertarians are ambivalent about such laws due to the implications for free speech. A ban, by its very nature, is coercive. It means that people who support diversity, equity and inclusiveness cannot gather in their offices and classrooms to plot their communist revolution. Many libertarians are against such bans on grounds that everyone, including

Many egalitarians and socialists argue that liberty is only of value to those who enjoy the privilege of having free will. They argue that many vulnerable people lack free will and that the state should, therefore, out of compassion for those trapped in unfortunate circumstances for no fault of their own, intervene with support, even when such interventions undermine individual liberty.

Natural law is often regarded with suspicion by social scientists because they conceptualize human nature, and increasingly even the nature of animals, as a social construct. In their view there is no essential human nature by reference to which we can decide what is in the best interests of society. They argue that we must instead adopt an aspirational approach, by constructing a better and fairer world for the planet, and by discovering what is best for society through a process of scientific experimentation. From that perspective notions of “right” and “wrong” are nothing more than majority opinions ascertained through democratic debate and agreement, and it would be hopelessly arbitrary and subjective to decide right and wrong by reference to some “higher” law called the law of

There is a popular perception that the role of the state is to uphold and enforce “fairness” much like a playground monitor ensures that children are not bullying each other, and that everyone is getting a fair chance to be included in the game. The fear is that if teachers do not monitor the schoolyard it might descend into the Lord of the Flies. Likewise, the state is said to have a moral duty to ensure fairness and goodwill among all citizens in their interactions with each other.In Freedom in Chains James Bovard criticizes the trend towards seeing the state as the fountain of fairness, depicting it as “the nationalization of fairness.” In the US context, he traces the origins of nationalizing fairness back to the New Deal, when President Roosevelt’s administration sought to establish

In A Cure Worse Than The Disease: Fighting Discrimination Through Government Control, M. Lester O’Shea criticizes the notion that we should legislate against unfairness. He poses the question as follows: “No one defends unfairness. So shouldn’t it be against the law?” In posing the question that way, his point is that the mere fact that we regard something as unfair – or even morally wrong – does not mean we ought to legislate against it. This point is of central importance to his argument against antidiscrimination legislation.Walter Williams adopts a similar approach in Race and Economics, arguing that the mere fact that free markets are blind to all sorts of interactions and bargains that we might regard as “unfair” does not mean there ought to be some sort of legislative intervention

In Race & Economics, Walter Williams emphasizes the importance of causality in understanding racial inequality. He argues that it is not enough to document and track economic inequality — it is necessary also to understand its causes.Without understanding the causes of any perceived problem, any attempts to resolve it are no more than wild stabs in the dark. For example, Kamala Harris recently argued that black people are less likely to be homeowners, a phenomenon that in her view is caused by the fact that “ninety-seven percent of appraisers are white,” which in turn leads to “inequity in the home appraisal system.”Having thus identified a problem and decided that the cause of the problem is “racial bias,” the solution in her view is “making information about home valuations and the race

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.

In his book, Race & Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination? Walter Williams argues that socioeconomic outcomes are not determined by race.Williams’ argument has infuriated race hustlers — traders in identity politics — who promote the theory that all socioeconomic outcomes are determined by race. According to race hustlers, the only way for black people to advance is by seizing power and using it to wreak some form of revenge on white people as reflected in the nostrums of critical race theory: The only remedy for past discrimination is present and future discrimination. Race hustlers view the institutions of America as “whiteness” and therefore as obstacles to the racial equality they seek. This is what they mean by their “abolish whiteness” slogans. Jude Russo argues that

There is a widespread perception that capitalism is a system designed to encourage greed, envy, selfishness, and other moral failings to flourish. Popular writing on capitalism, notably Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” recognizes the importance of addressing the moral case for capitalism. No economic system, no matter how efficient and productive, can flourish if it is widely regarded as the root of all evil. Given that the science of economics is value free and does not address questions of morality, this misconception about capitalism often festers and propagates with little demur.The assumption of many capitalists is that the demonstrable benefits of capitalism ought to speak for themselves – people will enjoy the material comforts that only capitalism can produce,

Respect for the rule of law cannot simply mean a moral obligation to obey legislation. History is replete with too many examples of tyrannical legislation for that notion to pass muster. But if the rule of law does not mean obeying whatever legislators enact, what does it mean?Murray Rothbard argued that this question must be answered by reference to ethical guidelines, which he constructed around the concepts of self-ownership and property rights. Rothbard conceptualized property rights as inalienable and absolute natural rights. Seen in that light, eminent domain legislation is unethical and unjust. The example of New York illustrates the significance of this point, as explained by the Institute for Justice:“In New York, eminent domain gives the government the power to take your

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.

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.

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.

In the “Constitution of Liberty” Friedrich Hayek highlights the malleability of the word “liberty,” explaining that “in totalitarian states liberty has been suppressed in the name of liberty.” Deployed in that way, the concept of liberty could mean anything, including its very opposite: coercion. Hayek writes:“There is no limit to the sophisms by which the attractions of the word ‘liberty’ can be used to support measures which destroy individual liberty, no end to the tricks by which people can be exhorted in the name of liberty to give up their liberty. It has been with the help of this equivocation that the notion of collective power over circumstances has been substituted for that of individual liberty and that in totalitarian states liberty has been suppressed in the name of

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.

Many who support state regulation of free markets claim that they are not against free markets, just against unregulated free markets. They argue that regulation is needed to mitigate the harm that may be suffered during market participation, such as people working long hours for low wages or suffering racial discrimination. As Ronald Hamowy explains in his introduction to Friedrich von Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty,” these arguments were influential in the rise of both welfare socialism and national socialism:“It was generally thought that only through vigorous government intervention was it possible to forestall the more destructive aspects of unbridled capitalism, which, if left unchecked, would bring privation and misery to the great mass of people. Equally important, only

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.

In her essay “Racism,” Ayn Rand argues that racism — which she describes as “the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism” — is incompatible with capitalism and can only be defeated through capitalism. She defines capitalism as “a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.” She explains that a defense of private property and laissez-faire capitalism is the only way to defeat racism:“There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism. … It is capitalism that gave mankind its first steps toward freedom and a rational way of life. It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free

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.

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.

As South Africa and most countries of the West attempt to enforce a state-led program of resource allocation based on race under the aegis of “equity,” it is timely to reevaluate the lessons to be learned from Walter Williams’ account of “South Africa’s War Against Capitalism.” In this book, Williams studies the economic effects of enforcing “a pervasive system of legalized racial discrimination.”His main aim is to counter the widespread view that racial discrimination is inherent in capitalism. Capitalists are said to pursue profit maximization above all else, are said to lack a moral conscience, and are said to oppress downtrodden races with the aim of squeezing every cent of profit from them. This is the reasoning of those who regard “capitalism” as a synonym for any form of

The phrase “equality of opportunity” is expressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a nondiscrimination principle. There has been much debate on whether the nondiscrimination principle is a formal right to equality before the law, reflecting the principle that everyone has a right not to be discriminated against, or whether it is a substantive right vested in specified groups (e.g., blacks or women) to give them special legal protection that members of other groups (e.g., whites or men) do not enjoy.Many conservatives and left libertarians argue that the nondiscrimination principle of the 1964 Civil Rights Act merely denotes a right to formal equality protecting everyone and that those who see it as a law concerned with substantive outcomes for blacks or women are “misinterpreting” the

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.

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.

The libertarian argument against civil rights laws strikes many progressives as fundamentally wrong because they view civil rights as the best way to promote liberal values including individual liberty. But any so-called values that lead inexorably to the destruction of society are not “liberal” in the true sense. In “Liberalism,” Ludwig von Mises explains the importance of pursuing what is good for society as a whole, rather than what seems good for one particular group.This seems counterintuitive to progressives, who reason that since liberalism is concerned with individual rights, no attention needs to be paid to the common interest or what is good for society as a whole. They reason that if even one individual is offended or hampered in pursuit of his ideals, that would justify

A quotation from Die Transvaler in 1958, cited by Walter E. Williams in his book “South Africa’s War Against Capitalism,” illustrates a widespread misunderstanding about the nature and purpose of the laws of economics. The political choice to be made by Afrikaner nationalists during the apartheid years was whether to pay a price in terms of economic progress by rejecting free markets, freedom of association and contractual freedom as a trade-off necessary to safeguard white civilization as they saw it: “It is fortunate that under a Nationalist government these worshippers of economic laws have never had their way but that a higher and nobler goal has been strived after — the maintenance of white civilization.”This reference to “worshippers of economic laws” misunderstands the nature and

The concept of reality is questioned by the notion, as László Krasznahorkai expressed it, that there are “many realities, or none at all.” By contrast, in Human Action, Ludwig von Mises offers a clear concept of reality, which he describes as “the whole complex of all causal relations between events, which wishful thinking cannot alter.” Building on this idea, Murray Rothbard argues that the entire science of human action can be deduced from a few basic axioms that are true about the real world. Real in this context means, as Mises says, “in the eyes of man, all that he cannot alter and to whose existence he must adjust his action if he wants to attain his ends.”Rothbard’s argument is that in the real world, some inescapable basic truths are self-evident, and from these basic axioms, we

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.

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.

In this age of relativism, where one often hears reference to “your truth” and “my truth,” there are so many varying interpretations of truth that the concept of truth itself seems devoid of meaning. It is fashionable to see the concept of truth as indistinguishable from opinions or preferences. For example, Mari Fitzduff writes thatfor many of us, far from our beliefs being “true,” they are actually born out of a particular social context, allied to physiological needs such as a differing neural sensitivity to threats and the greater certainty that a group can provide. Thus, beliefs are often what is termed “groupish” rather than necessarily true.The task of deciding which group has the “true” version of facts is then left to expert fact-checkers who will pronounce on what is true or

Human behavior is, to a large extent, socially constructed. People often act based on social norms, expectations, or habits rather than by attempting to ascertain the nature of reality itself. In that context, it is true to say that people’s perceptions of reality are socially constructed, as explained by the Thomas theorem:Another way of looking at this concept is through W.I. Thomas’s notable Thomas theorem which states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas 1928). That is, people’s behavior can be determined by their subjective construction of reality rather than by objective reality.In “Praxeology: The Methodology of Austrian Economics,” Murray Rothbard defines praxeology as “the logical implications of the universal formal fact that

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.

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.

Natural-rights libertarians reject egalitarianism, regarding it as a revolt against nature. On that premise, the only valid rights are those that give effect to self-ownership and private property. All rights created to give effect to egalitarian values are phony rights, and as Lew Rockwell has explained, “phony civil rights put your life in danger.”Murray Rothbard was against all phony rights, “all ‘rights’ for special groups,” with no exceptions. He explains:Government has been used to create a phony set of “rights” for every designated victim group under the sun, to be used to dominate and exploit the rest of us for the special gain of these cosseted groups. . . . The malignant New Class grant themselves and accredited victim groups ever increasing power to exploit, dominate, and loot

Although Harry Frankfurt was not a libertarian, his critique of egalitarianism reflects the principles of liberty. Frankfurt argued that “economic equality is not, as such, of particular moral importance” and that “if everyone had enough, it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others.” This has been described by David Gordon asan argument that most people who read Mises Institute articles will know already. In brief, the argument is that what matters to someone is how well he himself is doing. So long as a person has enough to lead a satisfying life, why should it matter whether there are other people who have more?Another of Frankfurt’s essays—his critique of sophistry, deceit, lies, and other forms of humbug—is also helpful in understanding why the

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.

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.

The culture wars are often depicted in the press as attacks launched by conservatives who are resistant to cultural change. The Guardian, for example, depicts culture wars as “wedge issues” that are “conjured up” by conservatives in a futile attempt to dictate opinions to voters but which only end up “turning young voters to the left in western countries.” In 2004, an interdisciplinary conference in Virginia gathered to discuss the theme “Countering Kulturkampf Politics Through Critique and Justice Pedagogy,” a theme that reflects the idea that people who oppose progressive politics are simply trying to turn everything into a culture war for some inexplicable reason.Liberals often say that they have no idea why conservatives want to fight culture wars. They claim to be bewildered. A

Those who have (wisely) not been following the “decolonization” debate may be surprised to learn that decolonizers characterize reason and rationality as cultural constructs that ought to be rejected, as these are said to be “based upon epistemological assumptions deeply rooted in the Western philosophical tradition” and therefore “perpetuate hegemonic thinking.” The decolonizers argue that reason and rationality ought to yield to “other ways of knowing” that are said to be derived from non-Western cultures.Bringing down the West is seen as an essential step in promoting “multiculturalism” and ultimately “social justice.” One of the most surprising features of this movement is that it attacks not only the humanities and social sciences, which might have been relatively unremarkable, but

When socialist schemes fail, as they inevitably do, our attention is immediately drawn away from the destruction they cause to the “good intentions” behind the schemes. They meant well. Their good intentions override their disastrous results. One reason why good intentions are important to both sides of the political divide is that good intentions play well to voters. A good example of this is the national debt crisis in the United States. The economist Samuel Gregg points out that while both parties pledge to resolve the growing national debt, both parties regard the measures necessary to resolve the situation as electoral suicide: “America’s National Debt challenge constitutes a political iron cage for Democrat and Republican legislators alike. While they can talk a big game about

In his 1949 book The Road Ahead: America’s Creeping Revolution, John T. Flynn warns about the “great tides of thought and appetite that run unseen deeply below the surface of society.” These unseen tides are political waves that shape the law and institutional policy, but because they are unseen, there is no widespread awareness of the danger they pose.

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.

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.

The BBC recently slapped a “trigger warning” on its popular 1969 series Civilisation, warning that viewers may deem the series objectionable as it presents Eurocentric perspectives. The series is now deemed to be “problematic” because it tells a “European story,” focusing on the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. This is criticized by academics—for example, the classicist Mary Beard—for excluding other cultures and also for excluding women while showcasing the achievements of men in Greece, Rome, France, Italy, Germany, and Britain.This rejection of Eurocentricity by modern academics pervades the “decolonize” movement that has swept through all scholarly disciplines across the humanities and natural sciences. The science of economics has not been spared. Economic theories that have long

Some philosophers, drawing upon Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, have questioned the nature and limits of reason. By contrast, human reason plays a central role in libertarian thought. In the ordinary dictionary sense, human reason means simply “the ability of a healthy mind to think and make judgments, especially based on practical facts.”In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises depicts reason as a universal quality common to all human beings, emphasizing that reason is “the mark that distinguishes man from animals and has brought about everything that is specifically human.” As all humans have the ability to reason, human logic can only proceed by reference to reason. Reason is the only basis on which we can conduct inquiry and endeavor to expand the frontiers of knowledge. As Mises

In this age of the “decolonized curriculum,” universities have set out to decolonize the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. By “decolonize,” they simply mean that all fields of knowledge should reflect all cultures and not just what they see as “Western” science. Epistemology, too, has been decolonized.In a field known as the “philosophy of race and racism,” it is argued that philosophy itself—how human beings reason and understand the world—is determined by race. For example, Charles W. Mills writes that philosophy as a discipline is “white,” arguing that “philosophy aspires to the universal, whereas race is necessarily local, so that the unraced (whites) become the norm.” Mills’s argument suggests that the essential idea of an objective search for truth is “white.” If

It is often argued in “decolonization” debates that each culture must find its own path to economic progress. In this context, the idea of inclusive economics is that building a diverse society requires economics to take account of “power relations, oppression, qualitative changes in social relations and . . . most importantly, the role of colonialism and the slave trade.” It is claimed that unless those factors are considered, economics will remain mired in a “thoroughly Eurocentric understanding of economic laws [seen to] operate in a universal manner across the world.”This should be understood in the broader context of multiculturalism and the idea that all cultures are equal: “The central premise of the multiculturalist credo, after all, is that all cultures are created equal. To judge

In Against the State, Lew Rockwell emphasizes that the assault on our liberties from the state is not merely “the product of temporary malfunctions. To the contrary, the state is by nature evil.” Rockwell shows that the state is founded on coercion and maintains its power by use of force.In recent years, following the rise of environmentalism, public health “safetyism,” and the war against “hate,” state interventions have encroached even further into private and family life. Against the State shows that these interventions are not only coercive but also antihuman in prioritizing their goals above human life. A striking example of this was the lockdown policy of closing schools and playgrounds, on the basis that children are resilient and so there is no reason why the state should not keep

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.

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.

Jeremy Bentham famously regarded natural rights as “nonsense on stilts” and taught that property rights are created by law and enforced by courts. Bentham’s view was that “before the laws, there was no property: take away the laws, all property ceases.” Lawyers in the Benthamite tradition accordingly set out to define the state-created nature of property rights and the boundaries of these rights as defined by the courts.The elusive nature of property has long confounded common lawyers who conceptualize ownership not as dominium in the Roman law sense but instead as a bundle of property rights created by the state. For example, Kevin Gray observes in the Cambridge Law Journal that “property is not a ‘thing’ . . . it is the ‘bundle of rights’ that comprises the ‘property.’” He proceeds to

Many libertarians hold the view that state coercion is wrong, regardless of the ends to which that coercion is deployed. It is wrong for the state to force people apart in an apartheid system, and it is also wrong for the state to force people to engage in “inclusivity” under systems of equity and diversity which force people into contractual relations against their will for example in the context of employment or housing. This is what Lew Rockwell meant when he referred to civil rights laws as “involuntary servitude”:Like the right to housing or medical care, civil rights must trample on the freedoms of association, contract, and even speech. As Michael Oakeshott has pointed out, these are what distinguish the free man from the slave. Civil rights laws even enshrine involuntary servitude,

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.

The ideal of individual liberty is perennially under attack not only from socialists, as one might logically expect, but also from conservatives who regard individualism as a form of selfishness. The ordinary meaning of selfishness is “caring only about what you want or need without any thought for the needs or wishes of other people,” and many conservatives see this as a major contributing factor in social decline. The conservative British journalist Nick Timothy attributes many social ills to selfishness, arguing that “our society has become more about ‘me’ than ‘we’,” leading to higher rates of crime, antisocial behavior, and a ballooning welfare state as selfish people try to take as much as possible from the public purse while contributing little or nothing to it.This school of

The classical liberal defense of contractual freedom is derived from the principle of individual autonomy. Freedom of contract entails the right to enter into or exit from contracts at will. As Richard Epstein argues in his defense of the contract at will:The first way to argue for the contract at will is to insist upon the importance of freedom of contract as an end in itself. Freedom of contract is an aspect of individual liberty, every bit as much as freedom of speech, or freedom in the selection of marriage partners or in the adoption of religious beliefs or affiliations (p. 953).Utilitarian classical liberals, like Epstein himself, who agree with him on the value of individual liberty therefore defend the widest possible scope for contractual freedom. They would only accept limits on

Ludwig von Mises’s 1927 book Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition is increasingly important in a time when so many conflicting ideologies march under the banner of liberalism. For example, according to the New York Times, “liberal values” include “racial equality, women’s rights, human rights and democracy.” The New York Times sees “classical liberal” as simply a label used by centrist conservatives to distinguish themselves from right-wing conservatives: “Never Trump conservatives tout their bona fides as liberals in the classical, 19th century sense of the word, in part to distinguish themselves from hard-right Trumpists.” This is the dominant understanding of liberalism among academics who describe themselves as liberal and who view “classical liberal” as synonymous with

In a 1964 article in the Yale Law Journal titled The New Property Charles Reich argued that “government largesse” is an increasingly important source of wealth and should thus be understood and regulated as a new form of property. Reich argued that “Property is a legal institution, the essence of which is the creation and protection of certain private rights in wealth of any kind” and that “Property is not a natural right but a deliberate construction by society.”Critical race theories build on this premise of property as a social construct, by asserting that racial identity is essential to the definition and regulation of property rights. They assert that any defense of property rights that does not explicitly mention race is unjust or at any rate incomplete. Thus they argue, for example,

The words of Lewis Carroll are often cited in reference to the culture wars and the redefinition of words whose meaning used to be regarded as plain.“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”This is the fate that befell the phrase “equal opportunities,” which has been used to justify all manner of “diversity, equity and inclusivity” (DEI) schemes. It will also be so with “colorblind equality,” a phrase now being championed by egalitarians as a counterpoint to DEI. Egalitarians are committed to promoting equality in one form or another and are

The “racial equality” debates are characterized by evolving concepts and terminology in a constant search for better ways to express the ideals and values of the protagonists. The mantras of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) are now under increasing attack as several states move to ban DEI programs. In search of an alternative conceptual foundation for their equality schemes, many liberals (both progressive and conservative) who wish to promote equality have proposed that a better alternative would be to unite around a concept of “colorblind equality,” which would reflect Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.Does this pursuit of racial equality pass muster from a natural-rights libertarian perspective? To answer that question, this article draws upon lessons from Murray Rothbard’s

A strategy for liberty must be both optimistic and realistic.Perennial optimists are sometimes tempted to ignore or minimize hazards, their answer to every challenge being somewhat lackadaisical: “Don’t worry, it will be fine.” They make the mistake of supposing all that is needed to surmount any challenge is a good bout of optimism. They can be heard, for example, assuring us that simply pronouncing the slogan “go woke, go broke” will scatter the enemies of liberty. They believe the Civil Rights Act would work very well if we would only clarify the difference between “equal opportunities” and “equal outcomes.” As Lew Rockwell has observed:It’s conservatives, not liberals, who are naive about the real meaning of anti-discrimination law. They say they love the Civil Rights Act, “Dr.” King,

The boundaries of contemporary public debate are artificially constrained by egalitarian values. Both progressive liberals and classical liberals are opposed to the more-outlandish versions of wokery, but many consider egalitarianism to be a good idea in principle as long as it is not taken “too far” by communist ideologues. The ongoing purge of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) schemes at universities in Republican states has closed offices and fired staff to wide acclaim, but it has at the same time retained a commitment to promoting some form of equality that they generally describe as “colorblind equality.”For example, in Florida, “Three senior UF [University of Florida] officials said in the memo that despite the elimination of the diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI program,

The conservative government in the United Kingdom champions the view that giving more foreign aid to developing countries will fuel economic growth that, as a bonus, will help to resolve the ongoing migration crisis. The international development minister has explained the government’s reasoning, namely that “giving development aid to countries was morally ‘the right to do,’ but a core argument should also be that it prevented refugees and migrants heading to Britain.”The government’s hope is that sending foreign aid to the Third World will discourage economic migration to the West. Under pressure to stem the flow of refugees and asylum seekers attracted by the UK’s generous welfare state, the Home Secretary has duly come up with a plan to “stop the flight of capital and workers, by

New York City’s government has imposed draconian rent controls. The natural outcome, as economists note, has been massive shortages, as apartment owners no longer have an incentive to rent empty apartments.Original Article: The Tyranny of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Self-defense is an ancient common law right under which necessary and reasonable force may be used to defend one’s person or property. As Sir Edward Coke expressed it in 1604: “The house of every one is to him as his Castle and Fortress as well for defence against injury and violence . . . if thieves come to a man’s house to rob him, or murder, and the owner or his servants kill any of the thieves in defense of himself and his house, it is no felony, and he shall lose nothing.”The meaning of reasonable force has always been heavily context dependent, considering the facts of the case including the intentions of the parties. If a trial were to become necessary in the scenario described by Coke, the court would have to establish that the intruders were indeed thieves intent on robbery or

Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito

Website powered by Mises Institute donors

Mises Institute is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent the law allows. Tax ID# 52-1263436

One of the most pernicious aspects of civil rights law is that it has abolished the presumption of innocence. Motive and intention are irrelevant in establishing liability for discrimination.Under the concept of disparate impact established in the notorious case of Griggs v. Duke Power (1971), any employment policy or practice that operates to exclude black people “is prohibited, notwithstanding the employer’s lack of discriminatory intent.” As held in Griggs: “Congress directed the thrust of the Act to the consequences of employment practices, not simply the motivation. More than that, Congress has placed on the employer the burden of showing that any given requirement must have a manifest relationship to the employment in question.”Any practices having disparate impact, such as tests

Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito

Website powered by Mises Institute donors

Mises Institute is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent the law allows. Tax ID# 52-1263436

In her dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court affirmative action case, Justice Ketanji Jackson began by announcing that “gulf-sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth, and well-being of American citizens.”

If we understand human rights as rights derived from the concept of self-ownership, it becomes clear that there is no such right as the right not to be discriminated against. I have a right to speak but no right to force others to listen to me or to “amplify” my voice. I am at liberty to go about my lawful business, but I have no right to force others to watch me or recognize me, much less to demand that anyone should take action to make me “feel seen.”

In Nations by Consent Murray Rothbard draws an important distinction between the nation and the state. While he regards the state as predatory, exploitative, parasitic and criminal, he does not view nations formed by consent as coterminous with the state.

In Freedom and the Law, Bruno Leoni argues that the main threat to liberty comes not from overweening officials but from the law that empowers them. As Murray Rothbard puts it, “The real and underlying menace to individual freedom is not the administrator but the legislative statute that makes the administrative ruling possible.” In that light, we can see that woke tyranny does not come from the self-important diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officers who claim to enforce “our shared values” but from the legislation that vests power in them. The real threat comes from the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Without the Civil Rights Act, DEI officers would have no cover for their preposterous schemes and polices. What right would they have to command people to kneel to showcase concern for

In Freedom and the Law, Bruno Leoni argues that the main threat to liberty comes not from overweening officials but from the law that empowers them. As Murray Rothbard puts it, “The real and underlying menace to individual freedom is not the administrator but the legislative statute that makes the administrative ruling possible.” In that light, we can see that woke tyranny does not come from the self-important diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officers who claim to enforce “our shared values” but from the legislation that vests power in them. The real threat comes from the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Without the Civil Rights Act, DEI officers would have no cover for their preposterous schemes and polices. What right would they have to command people to kneel to showcase concern for

Progressives argue that free markets stand in the way of economic and racial equality. In fact, free markets are the only vehicle that can help make people more equal.
Original Article: Legacies of Injustice and Racial Inequality

Natural rights are often regarded with deep suspicion by lawyers and economists, who are wary of the wild and extravagant demands framed in the language of human rights. A good example is the United Nation’s list of fundamental human rights, which Antony Flew derides as absurd in “Could There Be Universal Natural Rights?”:
“A right to social security” (Article 22) . . . “the right to . . . periodic holidays with pay” (Article 24) . . . “the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family . . . and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (Article 25) . . . “the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the

One of the most destructive aspects of the “decolonize” movement is its insistence that scientific principles are as subjective as cultural beliefs. Decolonizers argue that the natural sciences—physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology, along with computer science—should be analyzed from different ethnic and racial perspectives.
For example, students in a field designated as “Afrochemistry” are taught to “implement African American sensibilities to analyze chemistry.” It is said that science must be decolonized because, “as well as colonising the world physically, Europeans have dominated the world by promoting the ‘European paradigm of rational knowledge.’”
Similarly, the principles of individual liberty and private property are said to be culturally determined and therefore simply a

This article is a revised version of a talk given at the Oxford University Mises Society on January 16, 2024. The talk drew upon themes discussed in David Gordon and Wanjiru Njoya, Redressing Historical Injustice: Self-Ownership, Property Rights and Economic Equality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
Supporters of free market capitalism are often thought, wrongly, to be unconcerned about human well-being. On the contrary, it is precisely because we are concerned about human well-being that we promote free markets, productivity, and peaceful exchange—a point powerfully made by Ludwig von Mises in Liberalism: In The Classical Tradition:
That there is want and misery in the world is not, as the average newspaper reader, in his dullness, is only too prone to believe, an argument against liberalism.