Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
The Mises Institute
What is the Mises
Institute?
Are you virtual or do you
really exist?
Why is the Mises Institute in Auburn,
Alabama?
Are you part of Auburn University?
How are you funded?
What is that Coat of Arms all about?
How can I join as a member and what do I
get?
Are there other Mises Institutes? What is your
relationship?
How do you pronounce Mises?
Mises.org
What's on this site?
Why
do you have a store when you could use Amazon etc.?
How much traffic does Mises.org get?
Do you have a forum?
Will you link to me if I link to you?
How are you related to other sites?
Do you have an RSS feed?
Do you accept unsolicited
submissions?
What is your reprint policy?
What is your privacy policy?
Ideas
What's the point?
What is Austrian Economics?
Are you conservative, libertarian,
anarchist, socialist, or what?
Are you associated with the Libertarian
Party?
Is the Mises Institute up to no
good?
What is the Mises Institute position on [fill
in the blank]?
What is that foreign-language slogan I see here
and there?
Aren't you just preaching to the
choir?
Don't you make the good the enemy of the
perfect?
Educational
What should I read first?
What age should people begin studying
economics?
How many Austrian professors are
there?
Do you offer courses for credit or
degrees?
Is there an Austrian School university or graduate
school somewhere?
I'm visiting Vienna. What should I see that is
Austrian related?
I'm visiting New York. What was Mises's
address?
I'm still in New York. What was Murray
Rothbard's address?
Where can I visit Mises's grave?
Where can I visit Rothbard's
grave?
Submit a
question
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a research center, founded
as a 501(c)(3)
organization in 1982, that is dedicated to supporting the
intellectual tradition, particularly in economic and political
theory, represented by Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), who taught in
Vienna, Geneva, and New York. The Mises Institute, founded with the
blessing of Mises's widow, Margit (1890-1993), who served as
chairman, sponsors teaching programs and professional meetings,
publishes journals and
books, makes available audio and video, offers student assistance,
and otherwise provides a wide range of services to uphold the
Misesian tradition. The Mises Institute is not a "think tank" in
the conventional sense because it serves no political party, offers
no revolving door for public officials, nor seeks to embroil itself
in the pseudo-sciences of social and economic management. Rather,
the Mises Institute backs research and writing in defense of
Austrian economics, the market economy, private property, sound
money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing
government intervention as economically and socially destructive.
You can received our monthly
newsletter for
free.
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Are you virtual or do you really
exist?
We exist!
Take a tour, and even a
virtual tour with
images in 360 degrees, of our academic facilities in Auburn,
Alabama.
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What's on this
site anyway?
Mises.org consists of some 33,100 pages, uses 5 gigabytes of hard
disk, delivers 15 gigs of logfiles, and produces 1.8 million page
views for 750,000 visitors per month generating a monthly hit total
of 16 million (that's big, and date information too: we can even update this page to keep up with growth). We have
some 500
books in many formats by Austrian thinkers,some 1000 hours of media files
that includes new and old recordings of lectures and classroom
work, a radio
station with channels, archives of all our
publications,
4000 daily articles, a
great and active blog,
biography,
information about
events, a
book store, the
card catalog of our house
library, the
Austrian Syllabus
Project, some very nice
charts from the financial markets and data bureaus, vast
article archives from our
study guide,
information about
fellowships, a
quiz, a
calendar, a
film list, an
awards archive,
Mises Circle
songs,
a faculty list, and many
more things. We apologize for the imperfect organizational
structure. Thank goodness for
Google.
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What is your reprint policy?
Insofar as it is possible, the Mises Institute publishes in Creation Commons, which comes as close to a free-market system as is possible given the prevailing mercantilism of copyright. We
wish we could but can't grant open rights to all things. Web rights are not the same as print rights, and just
because we have been granted some rights doesn't mean that we
ourselves can grant such rights. For Daily Articles, matters are
more simple: print it. In general, we prefer links to web reprints if only because the
author might like to make changes to an article later. Our tendency is to avoid exclusive rights though we are
open to anything.
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What is your privacy policy?
The full text is
here.
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Why have a
store when you could use Amazon,
etc.? The main purpose of the
catalog is to provide the
highest-quality means of distributing Mises Institute
publications and books, which is something most publishers do
themselves, and are expected to do in these times. As a service
surrounding that primary task, we provide other
Austro-libertarian works that are related and round out one's
education and collection, and, in doing so, a catalog such as
our saves on search costs and offers a certain quality control.
We can also carry books others do not (including out of print
works), as well as spectacular memorbilia items. Our delivery
service is outstanding, with even faster delivery than most. But
it is not really a commercial venture so much as an extension of
the overall mission of the Institute. Buying books from us
directly rather than going through another distributor actually
ends up supporting our work. It's a small store but it does a
lot of good
What is
Austrian
Economics?
The term "Austrian School" refers to the national origin of the
School's founder,
Carl Menger
(1840-1921), who was one of the three economists who sparked the
"marginalist revolution" in economic thought. As with many monikers
in history, it was named by its enemies from the German Historical
School, who sought to disparage its worth by calling it Austrian
(read: unscientific, Aristotelian, deductivist, etc.). Over time,
however, the Mengerians accepted the term, and today it is worn as
a badge of honor (whereas hardly anyone remembers the Schmollerites
of the German Historical School). Since World War II, the Austrian
School has mostly been an American School, though today it finds
adherents all over the world.
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What should I read
first?
We've put together a list of
books for
beginners, some of which are available online. Whether you buy
them from us or some place else, they provide a solid grounding in
what this is all about. We also have what we have called the
"core"
of Austrian economics. If you have more time, read Mises's
Human Action or
Rothbard's Man,
Economy, and State. The text of each is online. If you only
have a few minutes, see
"Why Austrian
Economics Matters." If you learn better by listening, hear
Rothbard's
"Mises
in One Lesson." Hear
more
Rothbard for economics, and
Robert
LeFevre for libertarian theory.
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Why is the Mises Institute in Auburn,
Alabama?
In 1982, when the Mises Institute was founded,
Auburn University was one of the few universities in the world with
members of its economics department particularly tolerant of, or
even interested in, the Austrian tradition. The School of Business
was hospitable, and persuasively pointed out that the Institute
would thrive in Auburn because of the town's beauty, accessibility,
and affordability. After all, if we were to have visiting scholars
and students on an ongoing basis, low rents and pleasant living are
very important. We opened our doors here in 1983 in a basement
room, moved to a shed behind the football stadium, then to the
business school in 1989, and finally to our own place near the
School of Business in 1996. We adore our town, and so do all
domestic and international visitors, even those from ballyhooed
lands of fashion and finery. Auburn has its own glorious way about
it, and has been very kind to the Mises Institute from the
beginning.
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Are you
conservative, libertarian,
anarchist, socialist, or what?
We are Misesians! The media will typically
describe all non-socialists as conservatives, so we are usually
lumped in among them, though the actual orientation of the
Institute is libertarian. This designation can encompass a wide
range of thought from Jeffersonian classical liberalism to the
modern anarcho-capitalism of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995),
Mises's American student and the founding vice president of the
Mises Institute. (Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., is the founding
president.) Nor do we insist on the term libertarian, because it
can often create more confusions than it clarifies. The core
conviction is what matters: peaceful exchange makes everyone better
off; private property is the first principle of liberty;
intervention destroys wealth; society and economy need no central
management to achieve orderliness. Given these views, it would make
sense that some of our biggest critics, apart from the predictable
ones on the left, are often from varieties of right-wing thought
(protectionist, imperialist, Luddite, moralist, etc.) that have
their own agenda for what they want the state to do. Though the
editorial policy of the Institute is rooted in strict attachment to
principle, there is a great deal of diversity among our 200+
adjunct scholars. This diversity is on display at such venues as
our Austrian Scholars Conference. It is also correct to distinguish
between Austrian economics as a value-free science and libertarian
political economy, which is rooted in many different philosophical
points of view.
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Are you associated with the Libertarian
Party?
No, though we have nothing but good wishes for any voluntary
association serving the cause of liberty. Murray N. Rothbard was
involved with the Libertarian Party at one point, in the hopes that
it would be a useful educational venture, though he was against its
founding in 1972. The Mises Institute is satisfied to pursue its
educational mission outside political machinery of any sort.
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Is the Mises Institute up to no
good?
We've been accused of being (short list) the
Queen's agent in the conspiracy to legalize dope, and/or a
mouthpiece for the Money Power behind world finance capitalism that
exploits the world's poor, and/or a shill for monopolistic big
businesses such as Microsoft, and/or an apologist for and lover of
the Confederate States of America and thereby slavery, and/or a
front for the remnant of Jewish intellectual and financial
interests driven out of Austria between the wars, a partner of the
Vatican in its plan for a new inquisition, and/or in the pay of the
fast-food industry to cover its ongoing animal massacre, and/or a
sleek front for a hoary agenda of free love, prostitution, baby
selling, and pornography. The kernel of truth in each is that
Misesians generally favor drug legalization, capitalism, free
trade, the right of secession as part of the freedom of
association, property rights, religious freedom, and oppose
antitrust regulation and prohibitionism of all sorts. And, yes,
Mises and Rothbard were Jewish by heritage. The accusations stem
from a failure to understand that the cause of liberalism is not
about special interests but about the general interest. Yes, in our
day of hyper politicization when everyone seems to be in the
service of something or someone, just
as in Mises's
time, this is very difficult for people to believe. It is
nonetheless true.
What is the Mises Institute
position on [fill in the
blank]?
The Mises Institute represents a tradition of
thought that is currently embodied in the work of thousands of
students and scholars, including that of our 250+ adjunct scholars,
and this tradition of thought stretches across the world and time
dating back hundreds of years. As such, there is no specific "Mises
institute position" on any particular issue. However, writers on
this site, speakers at our conferences, and authors of our books
hold definite views on just about every aspect of history, theory,
and policy within the framework of the social sciences. There are
unifying themes and there are wide differences as well. Your best
bet is to search by topic. The Mises Institute gladly takes
responsibility for having published and distributed the opinions,
but full responsibility for the opinions themselves is attributable
to the author or authors.
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Are you
part of Auburn University?
This question usually means: are you funded by
Auburn University, and the answer is no. We have a good working
relationship with the university on many levels but our funding is
entirely private and our organizational structure is independent of
the university.
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How are you
funded?
We are funded by the private donations of individuals, businesses,
and foundations. We accept no government funds (yes, the funds have
been offered) and we tend to be eschewed by large foundations and
corporations (we accept no contract work). However, these
strictures place a rather severe limit on our resources and growth
potential. Please help
us overcome the odds. We also offer services to make it easier for
you to integrate your support for the Mises Institute with a range
of tax-saving strategies. Contact our
development office.
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What's the
point?
The point is to provide sanctuary for Austro-libertarian scholars,
to back the advance of social and economic science, and inspire an
intellectual revolution that secures liberty for the future. The
inspiration for these goals come from Mises's life. In 1934, he was
in Vienna, teaching at the university, working at the Chamber of
Commerce and conducting his private seminar as he had for years.
But he no longer felt safe, given the rise of Hitler. He wisely
accepted a position in Geneva at an independent institute, and
wrote the German edition of Human Action before coming to the US in
1940. The Nazis did in fact ransack his old apartment and steal the
books and papers he left behind. The first mission of the Mises
Institute, then, is to be a sanctuary for liberty in illiberal
times, both in our physical space and in the spirit conveyed in all
our work, so that science can proceed apace. And yet, the Mises
Institute does not merely want to inspire and protect a remnant.
Like Mises, we hope for intellectual revolution and global
political transformation toward a society in which person and
property are always and everywhere safe from violence and coercion.
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What is that
Coat of Arms all about?
The Mises Institute's coat of arms is that of the Mises family,
awarded in 1881 when Ludwig von Mises's great-grandfather Mayer
Rachmiel Mises was ennobled by the Emperor Franz Josef I of
Austria. In the upper right-hand quadrant is the staff of Mercury,
god of commerce and communication. As merchants, newspaper owners,
and bankers, the Mises family was successful in both. The flower on
the ribbon is the Rose of Sharon, a Jewish and Christian symbol of
beauty and God's favor. In the lower left-hand quadrant is a
representation of the Ten Commandments. Mayer Rachmiel, as well as
his father, presided over various Jewish cultural organizations in
Lemberg, the city where Ludwig was born. Mises was forbidden from
using the titles "von" and "Edler" (literally, "the noble") after
WWI in social democratic Austria, but in the US" von" once again
became part of his name.
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What is that
foreign-language slogan I see here
and there?
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. It is
from Virgil and it means "do not give in to evil but proceed ever
more boldly against it." Mises wrote in 1940, after he arrived in
New York having fled Europe, that he chose this sentence as a young
man to be his guide in life. He returned to it again and again as
he faced threats and adversity on all sides. We have it printed in
the Mises Institute conservatory in many languages, and it often
appears on Mises Institute t-shirts and the like.
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Aren't you just
preaching to the
choir?
This would not be such a bad thing if the "choir"
was brilliant and forever expanding. It does no good to speak only
to people who are not in the "choir" and thus have no
knowledge of the theory and history of the Austro-libertarian
intellectual apparatus. There is no development if you only repeat
the fundamentals. In truth, we make every effort to reach out
without giving up principle. In any case, with the web, this
criticism concerning internal development has become patently
absurd. The reach of the site, conferences, books, and journals is
global and stretches to all ages and classes. One of the reasons
for this is that we have a good product to offer the world —
a direct result of having spent so many years on internal
development.
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Don't you make the good the enemy of
the
perfect?
This would be perverse if true. Improvement
should be celebrated whenever it appears. Austro-libertarians
should indeed be practical. We should advocate marginal changes,
even as we draw attention to the full goal. However, the cause of
liberty is not served by deception or schemery. Nor should we do
evil in the hope that good may come of it. Above all, we must never
be tricked into backing ideas that will actually end up expanding
statism in the name of liberty (thinking here of school vouchers,
the flat tax, and the like). Too many programs masquerading as
practicality prove immediately dangerous to the cause of liberty.
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How can I join as a
Member and what do I
get?
You can become a member of the Mises Institute for an annual
contribution of $50. This brings you our monthly publication, The
Free Market, discounts to conferences and books, and the satisfaction that
you are assisting in the best hope for liberty in the long term
that is available in our times.
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Are there
other Mises Institutes? What is your
relationship?
There are Mises Institutes in Belgium, Poland, Argentina, Mexico,
Russia, Romania, Brazil and other places around the world. We wish
them all well, and hope for the creation of many more. We have no
formal ties with any of them, however, and we chose early on to
eschew anything like a trademark status for the Mises Institute.
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How do you
pronounce Mises?
Mises is pronounced MEE-zus.
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How much
traffic does Mises.org
get?
So far as we can tell, this is the
most trafficked
institutional economics site in the world, and perhaps even the
most trafficked non-university educational institution. We welcome links, and we are reasonably liberal with
reprint permissions for work to which we hold copyright.
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Do you have a
forum, an email list,
etc.?
The Mises.org
blog permits public comments on daily articles and new
developments, and the software works so fast that it functions in a
forum-like manner. An user-driven
Austrian Community also exists
to offer more casual exchange and discussion. Mises.org offers
email services
that allow you to received news and articles. Austrian academics
and Mises University grads will enjoy
Mises-L. If you
are actively studying Austrian theory or libertarianism, whether
officially or independently, join the
Austrian Network where you can
also link to your webpage and provide your contact information.
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Will you link to me if I
link to you?
We don't do log-rolling or quid pro quos, because
the arrangements can work at cross purposes with the primary goal
of delivering a high quality product to readers around the world.
We hope that you have the same standards and would not link solely
in order to inspire reciprocation. If you want to link to
Mises.org, it is a credit to your good judgment and you are
certainly welcome to do so. If you want to submit something to the
blog, you may do so. We also provide a
form for
this. If you have a site you think someone here might be
interested in, please do send it as a matter of information.
Mises.org wants to be community-minded but never at the expense
of content.
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How are you related to
other sites of your scholars and
staff?
The Mises Institute is only responsible for
content on the Mises Institute website, which is Mises.org. We also
encourage adjunct scholars, fellows, staff, members, and supporters
to maintain their own sites, blogs, forums to pursue their own
intellectual interests, whether or not it relates directly to the
work of the Mises Insitute. This work can range from active
participation on Wikipedia to blogs and sites on topics as diverse
as science and music and everything under the sun. Vive la
différence![
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Do you have an
RSS feed?
Not just one but thousands! You can choose one or
all here.
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Do you accept unsolicited
submissions?
Sure! Our editorial staff is pleased to offer
help, and attempts to provide a quick turnaround.
- Daily Articles:
This venue features shorter articles (700-3000 words) that
employ Austrian theory and practice to illuminate current or
historical events. These articles, which reach 20,000
subscribers in their in-boxes every day, require clarity of
thought and exposition. They are permanently archived and
eventually reach hundreds of thousands. The more steeped in
the Austrian tradition, the better. Footnotes are fine but
not required, but internal links are much preferred. Write
the editor.
- The Free Market:
This monthly journal interprets current policy and events in
light of Austrian theory and free-market policy. The editor
seeks articles that are pithy, rigorous, provocative, and
deal with enduring themes. Preferred length: 1500 words.
Write the editor.
- Working
Papers: These are unpublished academic papers in process.
Submissions follow standard scholarly format with footnotes and
citations, and include complete author information including
affiliation and email address. They published as sent once
rendered into PDF format. There is an informal review process.
The papers are read by Austrian scholars, students, and
interested people all over the world. Write the
editor.
- The Quarterly
Journal of Austrian Economics: This referred journal
considers articles that promote the development and extension
of Austrian economics and that promote the analysis of
contemporary issues in the mainstream of economics from an
Austrian perspective. Write the editor.
- Libertarian Papers: The innovative and brilliant online journal edited by N. Stephan Kinsella and published by the Mises Institute.
- The Journal of
Libertarian Studies: Founded in 1977, this referred journal
is the primary venue for reconstruction of the history of ideas
and politics in terms of libertarianism.
How many Austrian
professors are
there?
It is not possible to count them all, especially as there is no
trademark on the name Austrian. There are "orthodox," "heterodox,"
and fellow traveling Austrians, and many economists, historians,
philosophers, legal scholars, investment managers, and many others
in all walks of life who appreciate the insights and the
availability of our resources.
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Do you offer
courses for credit or
degrees?
The Mises Institute offers no degrees, though we do offer a chance
to pass oral examinations under our faculty, as part of our
academic programs. Whether and to what extent college credit is
given for coursework done at the Mises Institute is up to the
institution doing the granting. Typically, most colleges and
universities will offer 1 to 3 hours credit for successful
attendance at the Mises University.
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What
age should people begin studying
economics?
Children can begin learning about trade-offs,
opportunity costs, business, and the value of money at early ages,
but formal study can wait until the high-school years. Hazlitt's
Economics in One Lesson is a classic text, but for the pure
logic of economics, there is also David Gordon's text
An Introduction to Economic Reasoning. The
Home Study
Course is a bit more advanced but valuable for homeschoolers
and others willing to grapple with a rigorous program.
Is there an Austrian School university or
graduate school somewhere?
No. However, there are many Austrians teaching in
the United States and around the world. You can see our
faculty list, and also
this memo
from Walter Block designed for graduate
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I'm visiting
Vienna. What should I see that is
Austrian related?
We have a guide just for
that purpose.
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I'm visiting
New York. Where did Mises
live?
He lived at 777 West End Avenue, Apartment 12E.
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I'm still in New York. What
was Murray Rothbard's address?
He lived at 215 West 88th Street, Apartment
2E.[
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Where can I
visit
Mises's grave?
Ludwig and his wife Margit are
buried in Ferncliff Cemetery, 280 Secor Road, Hartsdale, New
York, in Westchester County, 25 miles north of New York City.
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Where can I visit Rothbard's
grave?
Murray and his wife Joey are
buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Unionville, Virginia. This is the
central part of the state, about halfway between Fredericksburg and
Charlottesville, approximately 10 miles east of Orange, and 40
miles from Charlottesville.
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Whom can I
contact for further information and
help?
member services |
book orders |
giving | bad links |
deep technical issues |
academic services |
permissions |
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