David Ramsay Steele, 1992, From Marx to Mises, post-capitalist society and the challenge of economic calculation. Chicago: Open Court. 6 x 9 in., 458 pages. $17.95 paper, $39.95 cloth. Reviewed by George Walford Remember Lenin, and his claim that imperialism was the highest and final stage of capitalism? The empires he knew have gone but… read more »
Local councils in the UK had to be barred from using ‘creative accounting’ to get round financial restrictions imposed by central government. How about ‘creative argument’ as a name for attempts to get round the restrictions imposed by responsible thinking? For example: The Mount Everest Fallacy: Some have become socialists (communists, anarchists); this shows that… read more »
GUESS the date of this one: Sunday next will be May Day. That there will be trouble because of the Anarchist and Socialist movements there is little doubt; but the steps that have been taken during the past week are calculated to maintain the peace and to secure property at all hazards. It’s from the… read more »
Let me start by declaring an interest. Donald is a friend of mine, and when reviewing Beyond Politics for Freedom he said some flattering things about it. This obliges me to be extra generous in reviewing his new pamphlet, since compliments will tend to be discounted while any hint of criticism will carry extra weight…. read more »
TERMINOLOGICAL EXACTITUDE Sir, Having read Beyond Politics I agree with Zvi Lamm and Freedom that it is lucid, an invisible quality complemented by its almost stark black, white and yellow physical presence. All this, combined with the unfashionably theoretical nature of the subject, made the book a delight to read. Yet, as I neared the… read more »
Although our critics may find it hard to believe, we read them with enjoyment and take account of what they say. Some of the compliments on the cover of this issue cancel out. Can a theory be both mystical and mechanical? Can mere drivel undermine libertarian impulses? The others show a tendency to dismiss us… read more »
Authoritarian religion and the state appeared together as paired expressions of domination, and the novelty of the original Christian movement was soon brought into line. In Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, Professor Averil Cameron suggests that the Christians in the Roman Empire took care that both what they said and their way of saying… read more »
In Anarchy, a Journal of Desire Armed, #31, Lev Chernyi speaks of two political groups. On the one hand ‘those who defend dominant (or would-be dominant) institutions’; on the other, ‘radicals and revolutionaries.’ Most people who think about such things accept this or some similar distinction and they agree, also, that the second group works… read more »
FREEDOM of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. If you doubt that, try getting a piece on systematic ideology into the Socialist Standard. DEATH with his scythe leading the victim away, they pass Santa Claus: ‘I bet you didn’t believe in him, either.’ NATIONALISATION of telegrams in 1870 and telephones in… read more »
From Anarchy, a Journal of Desire Armed, No. 31. The concept of ideology has fairly recent origins. The word was coined by the French writer A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy in 1796 to name his ‘science of ideas.’ Since that time use of the term has been divided between two general senses, one positive… read more »