Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson
“[L]et’s take a look at a quote from Ludwig von Mises, in Epistemological Problems of Economics: ‘If a contradiction appears between a theory and experience, we must always assume that a condition pre-supposed by the theory was not present, or else there is some error in our observation.’ … according to Mises — whom Walter [Block], as a devout Austrian economist, presumably reveres — there’s a direct contradiction between the claim that wages are determined by marginal productivity and the associated prediction that minimum wage increases will cause unemployment, and the empirical observation that a $20 minimum wage increase did not, in fact, increase unemployment. The clear implication, as Mises put it, is that ‘a condition pre-supposed by the theory was not present.'” (03/06/25)
Source: Common Dreams
by Jennifer Scarlott & Nick Mottern
“Even before the extraordinary activism for an end to the genocide in Gaza and the liberation of the Palestinian people at Columbia University last spring, the students of Smith Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, set a high bar for the coming wave of campus unrest across the U.S. with their 11-day occupation of College Hall, Smith’s administration building. For us as residents of Northampton, Massachusetts, it was awe-inspiring to watch Smith students’ activism as those first days passing sleeping bags through the windows of College Hall turned into weeks and months of creative actions demanding the school’s administration end its complicity in genocide. Outdoor student and faculty teach-ins in the snow and mud of early spring set the stage for ongoing pro-Palestine cultural and political education events as the lush grounds of the college responded to the lengthening days and warming temperatures.” (03/06/25)
“[In 1939] Czech president Emil Hacha was summoned to Berlin, where Adolf Hitler and his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, threatened him in tag team fashion: hand over your country to us, or we will bomb it to rubble. The main difference between Trump’s and Vance’s behavior is that they demanded Zelensky deliver Ukraine to a third country, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. That might appear to be the beginning of the end of Ukraine’s brave resistance against the neo-imperialism of Russia, just as Czechoslovakia, abandoned by Britain and France, disappeared into the darkness. But this is a potential illusion fostered by American parochialism, a self-centered and provincial view of the world that is held, above all, by right-wingers who believe the rest of the world only exists at our sufferance, but to some degree also by many liberals who oppose them.” (03/06/25)
“Imagine that a longtime friend complains that you’ve repeatedly tracked mud into his house and threatens to trash your house in return. You endeavor to wipe your feet, perhaps even taking your shoes off altogether, yet the threats continue. Eventually, you have to question the friendship. This is where the US stands with Canada and Mexico, our closest trade partners, as the threat of tariffs continues to erode generations of economic goodwill. Despite both Canada and Mexico attempting to accede to US demands, they are now faced with renewed saber-rattling. While both countries will likely try to placate, it is becoming clear that both countries have begun questioning the role they want the US to play in their economies.” (03/06/25)
“Americans will push back against the argument that the United States is just another corrupt country. Sure, they might say, private interests buy political influence. Still, the use of money to sway government action is constrained by rules and laws. It’s different from the opaque, under-the-table dealing that prevails in the kleptocracies of the developing world. That argument is increasingly out of date. America’s good-governance metrics have slipped significantly over the past decade. Last year, its score on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index fell four points, to 65 out of 100. That is down from a score of 76 in 2015.” (03/06/25)
“Is that how you want your children to act in public? Recall your days of school assemblies. All classes dutifully assembled on the bleachers, and for what? Some pretty awful speeches, awards, skits, earnest appeals to not drive drunk and more. Rallies before big games could be fun, and decorum then went out the window — but not totally. There may have been some discipline issues at all of them. Catholic high schools like my own had standards that were at least as demanding when it came to in-school behavior as our public school counterparts.” (03/06/25)
“The post-1945 ideological movement we now call ‘conservative’ has never really been an heir to the classical liberals. This can be seen in the American conservative movement’s obsession with war, and in the fact that its founder, William F. Buckley, literally supported the adoption of militarist totalitarianism. Indeed, the free-market aspect of conservatism was never more than a thin patina applied to the movement to help the conservative leaders attract the disaffected free-market supporters of the Old Right. American conservatism in practice has never prioritized freedom as historical liberals have. Indeed, some of the conservative movement’s own theorists, such as Russell Kirk, explicitly sought to separate the conservative movement from the free-market liberals of the nineteenth century.” (03/06/25)
“The commitment of Washington’s European allies to democracy is increasingly fragile, if not hypocritical, as Vice President J D Vance highlighted in his speech to the Munich Security Conference last month. That problem is most acute in Romania. In the first round of the country’s presidential election on November 24, 2024, Calin Georgescu, the candidate of a right-wing populist party, unexpectedly led the field. In addition to having populist social views, Georgescu is an outspoken critic of NATO. His ‘apostasy’ on that issue makes him especially unacceptable to Romania’s political establishment and its U.S. supporters. … The response of the beleaguered establishment forces was to get the country’s election commission, which the PSD and PNL dominated, to nullify the first round election results.” (03/06/25)
