Although she came from humble, pioneer beginnings, author and journalist Rose Wider Lane came to prominence at the close of World War II as a staunch defender of freedom. Lane is best known for her book The Discovery of Freedom, published in 1943, which traces the six-thousand year development of freedom from its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition to the present day. Though Lane later came to dislike the book-she thought it too hastily written-it became an underground classic and one of the foundational documents of the modern libertarian movement. She is less...

R&L: Explain the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism.

Liggio: Modern liberals have tried to steal the cloak of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism was the dominant philosophy in the United States and England, really, until about the First World War. The war, unfortunately, was a disaster for liberalism, because it disrupted constitutional order. All the countries at war used extreme measures of repression. Even England and America created police states on the model of Germany or their Czarist allies and trampled liberty underfoot. At the same time, they trampled economic liberty by allocating resources through central planning, again modeled on the German desperation as they were cut off by the wartime blockade. In fact, Lenin viewed the...

It was seven years ago that the Berlin Wall fell, liberating all of Central and Eastern Europe in a resounding crash. Now some in Western Europe wish it were standing again, while others in the East wonder what they’ve gained. Corruption has flourished in the ensuing moral vacuum. Not a few people have concluded communism is preferable to anarchy or poverty. The moral and spiritual leaders of the peaceful revolution have little political influence and they struggle to define the Permanent Things in a culture in flux.

It would be presumptuous of us in the West to offer advice, as our culture deteriorates apace. Once self-evident truths, which were the legacy of western civilization, are under full assault. Post-modernism, multi-culturalism, and revisionism dissolve the Permanent Things.

Leonard E. Read was the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, one of the original pro-freedom think tanks. Through his tireless efforts in that organization, as well as through his twenty-seven books, countless essays, and extensive speaking schedule, he was largely responsible for the revival of the liberal tradition in post-World War II America.

Read was born on September 26, 1898, on an eighty-acre farm just outside Hubbardston, Michigan. His early life was marked by hard work and diligent study. As a young man, Read served in the armed forces in World War I, enlisting shortly after the United States entered. After he was discharged, he was eager to go to...

R&L: Do you agree with Josef Schumpeter’s thesis that capitalism is ultimately destructive of both itself and the culture within which it operates?

Berger: I don’t think I can answer that with a simple yes or no. Schumpeter saw certain things very clearly, and certainly capitalism creates certain processes which have negative cultural effects. I would say that capitalism is very much part of modernity, not just the economic system. It is other institutional consequences of modernization, for example pluralism, that have various effects on culture, and that would take a long time to explain.

Whether capitalism destroys itself the way Schumpeter thought is another question. He thought that, among other things, advanced capitalism becomes...

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.

This is why Pope John Paul II took the “social assistance state” to task in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus. The Pontiff wrote that the Welfare State was contradicting the principle of subsidiarity by intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility. This “leads to a...

Ibn Jaldún, considerado el más grande historiador árabe, también conocido como el padre de la ciencia social moderna y de la historia de la cultura. Nacido en Túnez proveniente de una familia devota e influyente, su primera educación se caracterizó por el estímulo intelectual que este tipo de influencia otorgaba. En 1349 la Muerte Negra golpeó Túnez  tomando consigo a su madre y su padre, así como a muchos de sus profesores. Consecuentemente estaba luego ansioso de dejar atrás la soledad de Túnez y trasladarse a Fez, el centro neurálgico de la vida...