It's true that the protestors at international trade meetings want nothing short of world-government regulations on labor and environment. They want global redistribution and antitrust. They want the UN to tax us and impose an international welfare state. And they hate anything-private property, corporations, national borders-that stands between them and their goal.
How did the State come into being? Martin van Creveld's new book provides a new perspective, writes Joseph Stromberg.
Martin van Creveld's outstanding book traces the origin, growth, and decline of what Nietzsche termed "that coldest of all cold monsters, the state." By "state," our author means something more limited than do contemporary libertarians.
Mr. Pipes has written a very good book, but he has made life difficult for me as a reviewer. He defends the importance of property rights throughout the book, but he does not argue systematically,
As usual Murray Rothbard was right. In his Classical Economics, he contrasts John Stuart Mill with his father James Mill: "Instead of possessing a hard-nosed cadre intellect, John Stuart was the quintessence of soft rather than hard core,
The attempt by government to collect information on citizens has a long and troubled history. The lesson is that power, once granted, will always be abused.
In 1940, Mises watched the rise of the total state and the destruction of Europe, and believed he had been "the historian of decline." But the designation doesn't apply to today's Misesians.
In The Foundations of Leninism, Stalin declared "For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, we must have the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries." What he secured instead was the slavish devotion of Western intellectuals who claimed to represent the proletariat: left intellectuals. With some exceptions, these apologists either ignored or adamantly denied the atrocities of Stalinism. In doing so, they became accomplices to the bloodbath that was Soviet communism; that is, Marxism as popularized by Lenin.
In the last several decades, step by step, the system has become Diocletianized.
The last turn-of-the-century gave birth to Progressivism which was really statism in disguise. But after a century of the state, freedom still stands a chance.
