Mises Media

Mark Thornton returns to Rothbard’s idea of major party realignment, arguing that ideology—not interest-group politics alone—drives long-term political change. He applies that framework to today’s Republican Party, tracing its roots in crony capitalism, protectionism, prohibitionism, and single-issue coalitions, while arguing that the modern uniparty supports inflation, war, runaway spending, debt, and the erosion of the middle class.

On Side B, Mark joins Little by Little to discuss war, business cycles, bond-market distrust, private credit, gold, AI, and the growing divide between official statistics and household reality. He warns that political barriers can delay realignment only so long before pressure builds toward revolution, but closes with optimism: young Americans are increasingly rejecting the parties, the media, and state propaganda—and are more open to Austrian economics than ever.

"Major Party Realignment" by Mark Thornton (Minor Issues, Episode 186): https://mises.org/podcasts/minor-issues/major-party-realignment

"The Transformation of the American Party System" by Murray N. Rothbard: https://mises.org/mises-daily/transformation-american-party-system

"Taking Government Out of Politics: Murray Rothbard on Political and Local Reform during the Progressive Era" by Patrick Newman (Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics): https://mises.org/quarterly-journal-austrian-economics/taking-government-out-politics-murray-rothbard-political-and-local-reform-during-progressive-era

"Murray Rothbard’s Lessons for the Right" by David Brady Jr. (Modern Age Journal): https://modernagejournal.com/murray-rothbard-conservative-libertarian/254754

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray's 100th birthday—and we're celebrating by giving away free copies of The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar through August 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/issuesfree

20% off listener offer on the insulated Minor Issues tumbler and three of Mark's books: https://mises.org/MinorIssuesTumbler. Use coupon code Thornton.

Be sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues

Fauci is back in the limelight after the release of his diary before a Senate hearing last week. And that’s good, because the career of Anthony Fauci can teach us a lot about where power actually resides in America and how our system really works.

Read the article here: https://mises.org/mises-wire/what-anthony-fauci-teaches-us-about-american-government

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray's 100th birthday—and we're celebrating by giving away free copies of The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar through August 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/gabfreebook

Be sure to follow the Guns and Butter podcast at https://Mises.org/GB

Much of the discussion around American healthcare ignores the fact that most of the American healthcare system is already a government healthcare system.

Be sure to follow Radio Rothbard at https://Mises.org/RadioRothbard

Radio Rothbard mugs are available at the Mises Store. Get yours at https://Mises.org/RothMug PROMO CODE: RothPod for 20% off

Dinesh D’Souza—a self-proclaimed opponent of “revisionist history”—reinterprets the Declaration of Independence through anachronism and equivocation, reading modern concepts of nationhood and equality back into 1776.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/declaration-and-dinesh-dsouzas-revisionist-history

On this episode of Power and Market, Ryan, Connor, and Tho discuss the social debate this week focused on Gen Z economic anxiety. How did a discussion over the price of burritos become a mask-off moment over generational contempt, foreign policy, and neoliberal economics? 

Mutual aid societies once were an important part of the US social landscape. Africans can benefit from the same movements—provided their governments get out of the way.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/when-death-cheaper-care-mutual-aid-developing-world

In spite of the GOP's feigned dismay over Morocco's weaponization of migrants against Spanish exclaves in North Africa, US policy supports Moroccan expansionism in the region. 

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/us-supports-mass-migration-moroccans-spanish-territory

Bob returns to the fractional reserve banking debate to clarify a point the critics keep missing: in the Mises-Hayek-Rothbard framework, it's fractional reserve banking itself that sets the boom-bust cycle in motion, not merely central banks.

Related:

• Lawrence White, Free Banking in Britain: Mises.org/HAP561a
• Bob's Previous Episode on Rothbard vs Free Bankers: Mises.org/HAP561b
• Bob's Paper on the History of Fractional Reserve Free Banking: Mises.org/HAP561c
• Roger Garrison's Presentations on Capital-Based Macroeconomics: Mises.org/HAP561d

The transition problem. Rothbard weighs forcing deflation down to the existing gold stock against raising the gold price to match the dollar supply, defends deflation against its reputation, and sets out a six-point program. He parts with Mises and Hazlitt on sequencing, and closes by insisting that scholars must argue for what is true rather than for what is currently expedient.

Rothbard places the 100 percent program in the classical economists and the currency school, and in the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian political tradition—figures he argues historians have miscast as economically ignorant agrarians. He credits Condy Raguet with seeing before the British that deposits are money substitutes too, and recovers the neglected Charles H. Carroll and Isaiah W. Sylvester.