The Mises Institute argues the U.S. has cycled through six distinct republics, each defined by a shift in constitutional interpretation or federal power. The current one is a surveillance leviathan.
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Most Americans believe they still live under the constitutional republic created in 1787. That was five republics ago.
That claim comes from the Mises Institute, which argues the U.S. has cycled through six distinct republics since the founding, each defined by a shift in constitutional interpretation or federal power. The first ended with the Civil War. The second gave way to the Progressive Era. The third collapsed into the New Deal. The fourth was the post-war administrative state. The fifth began with the national security apparatus after 9/11. The sixth, the authors argue, is the surveillance leviathan of the present day.
The piece rejects the idea of an unbroken constitutional order. Each republic, it says, operates under a different set of unwritten rules about what the federal government may do. The original republic assumed limited enumerated powers. The current one assumes near-unlimited authority over surveillance, economic management, and national security.
The Mises Institute framed the argument as a challenge to what it calls the myth of eternal union. The article appeared on its website under the title "From Spoiled Sons of Liberty to Surveillance Leviathan." The institute promotes Austrian School economics and individual freedom in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.
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