Deficit Hawks or War Hawks?

Individualist, limited-government, free-market advocates who had fought the New Deal tooth and nail also opposed America’s budding empire.

Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire

It’s always easy to spend other people’s money. Unfortunately, some people have an equally easy time spending other people’s lives. Over the last decade, the United States has routinely, even frivolously, attacked countries, overthrown regimes, and intervened in civil strife where few or no American security interests were at stake. Particularly striking is that two [...]

Did Locke Really Justify Limited Government?

John Locke (1632–1704) was a physician, statesman, and political philosopher, filling that last office in a dry, “empirical,” and militantly antipoetic English mode. Locke’s stock has risen and fallen over the years. Contemporaries called him a Socinian (a precursor of Unitarianism), a deist, a Muslim, and an opportunist. Later critics have seen Locke as the [...]

My Favorite Paine Quote

War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditure. In reviewing [...]

Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism

The abysmal 2008 presidential election should have Americans scratching their heads, pondering how the political economy of the United States devolved into a duopoly of two nearly identical, state-loving political parties that are always ready to intervene militarily anywhere on the planet. It was not always this way, and how we got here is the [...]

A Property-Rights Theory of Mass Murder

Stephen Carson, a software engineer, writes independently from St. Louis. This article is condensed from “Killing and Stealing: A Property-Rights Theory of Mass Murder,” which first appeared in The Independent Review, Winter 2007, and was reprinted in Opposing the Crusader State: Alternatives to Global Interventionism, edited by Robert Higgs and Carl P. Close (The Independent [...]

Smart Economics: Commonsense Answers to 50 Questions about Government, Taxes, Business, and Households

By Michael L. Walden Reviewed by George C. Leef

Book Reviews – November 2006

• 
  "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;
  mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the
  Politics and the History of Our Time
  by
  "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;
  mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Ludwig von Mises "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;
  mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"> Reviewed
  by Richard M. Ebeling
• 
  1776
  by David McCullough
  Reviewed by George C. Leef
• 
  Active
  Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution
  by Stephen Breyer
  Reviewed by Michael DeBow
• 
  Making
  Great Decisions in Business and Life
  by David R. Henderson and Charles
  L. Hooper Reviewed by Philip R. Murray