If you want to expose the absurdity of the state, think governmental accounting. Really, there is no better way to show the impossibility of a government solution to scarcity than by reading the annual audit of any governmental entity. Goethe considered double-entry bookkeeping — the essence of accounting — to be “ one of the finest inventions of
The Free Market 15, no. 4 (April 1997) It is the widespread view in academia that John Maynard Keynes was a model classical liberal in the tradition of Locke, Jefferson, and Tocqueville. Like these men, it is commonly held, Keynes was a sincere, indeed, exemplary, believer in the free society. If he differed from the classical liberals in some
The Free Market 32, no. 12 (December 2014) Throughout the existence of the Fed, its officers and intellectual supporters understandably asserted that the government’s movement toward central banking was a most beneficial evolution. In a 1948 issue of The Federal Reserve Bulletin , for example, Fed Chairman Thomas B. McCabe asserted that money
The Free Market 25, no. 9 (October 2007) The state is the most destructive institution human beings have ever devised—a fire that, at best, can be controlled for only a short time before it o’erleaps its improvised confinements and spreads its flames far and wide. W hatever promotes the growth of the state also weakens the capacity of individuals
The Free Market 25, no. 10 (November 2007) A persistent virus is beginning to spread, threatening to sweep the country as the next great epidemic. What is the ill? The Fourier Complex of course. The Fourier Complex ? Yes, it is the mental state—syndrome—identified by its vile symptoms: extreme envy, fear of the free market, belief in
The Free Market 30, no. 6 (June 2012) The following is a testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Monetary Policy (Chairman: Ron Paul). Dr. Salerno was able to give this testimony thanks to the generous support of Mises Institute donors. Chairman Paul and members of the Subcommittee, I am deeply honored to
The Free Market 26, no. 2 (February 2005) John Kenneth Galbraith, that insufferable puritan, wrote an odd book in 1958 called The Affluent Society , and it had a huge influence on several generations of anti-market activists. The burden of the book was to brazenly shift the terms of the debate over socialism and capitalism. Whereas the socialists
The Free Market 24, no. 10 (October 2006) Most school kids are left with the impression that the US Constitution was the inevitable followup to the Declaration of Independence and the war with King George. What they miss out on is the exciting debate that took place after the war and before the Constitution, a debate that concerned the dangers of
The Free Market 6, no. 2 (February 1988) Compared with life in Western countries, where the socialist sector is sizable, life under total socialism is miserable. The standard of living is so deplorable that, in 1961, the socialist East German government built a system of walls, barbed wire, electrified fences, minefields, automatic shooting
The Free Market 15, no. 4 (abril de 1997) Es la opinión generalizada en la academia que John Maynard Keynes fue un modelo clásico liberal en la tradición de Locke, Jefferson y Tocqueville. Al igual que estos hombres, Keynes era un creyente sincero y ejemplar en la sociedad libre. Si se diferenciaba de los liberales clásicos en algunos aspectos
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.