Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind the markets and prices that provide goods and services to consumers. Human action looks to the future. Entrepreneurs shoulder risks and, if they guess right, collect profits as rewards. If wrong, they lose.
Why Economics Matters
A private seminar for high school students. Recorded at the Mises Institute on 21 February 2012.
Download the complete audio of this event (ZIP) here.
Private property is the only foundational institution that society needs to build a civilization. The 99% had rotten lives until there was a revolution in ideas in the 1700s. Laissez-faire ideas changed the ideas of the 99%. The industrial revolution flowered.
Mainstream economics is fixated on market failure. The solution for mainstream economists is always heavy regulation. Capitalism permits global scale enterprises to thrive despite bureaucratic red tape.
Some responses to questions included: Trends in economics are dangerously negative. Keynesians are more unrealistic than ever. Mises says you only have two choices in coordinating resources: socialism or capitalism. Prohibition of drugs leads to violence and death.
How can The Art of War help you think like an economist? Because resources are scarce we have to put the goods we do have to the best use. Sun Tzu understood that war is destruction and resources must be preserved. The only good war is one won without fighting.
What did the diamond and water paradox have to do with an important Austrian tenet that reversed economic thinking?
Beggar thy neighbor policies are now called Quantitative Easing. Just like regular protectionism this currency war approach will lead to real wars.