Today is the 24 th anniversary of Murray’s Rothbard’s death. What did he stand for? In an outstanding recent article , Lew Rockwell, one of Murray’s closest friends and the founder of the Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com, offers the best answer. Lew says: “If you want to understand Murray Rothbard, you need to keep one principle in mind. If you
Anthony de Jasay, an important free market economist and political philosopher passed away on January 23. Born in Hungary in 1925, he studied at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he was a protégé of I.M.D. Little, a leading authority on welfare economics. Like Little, de Jasay was an astringent critic, and he often assailed his fellow classical
Today would have been the 90th birthday of Burt Blumert, one of the greatest personalities of the modern libertarian movement. Burt was the indispensable man behind the scenes and was a key figure in the Mises Institute, the Center for Libertarian Studies, and LewRockwell.com. He was one of Murray Rothbard’s closest friends; and when you met him,
War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate . By Stephen F. Cohen. Hot Books-Skyhorse Publishing, 2019. Xiii + 225 pages. Stephen Cohen, a renowned authority on Russia, raises a question that applies more widely than the current confrontation between Russia and the United States, vital though it is that we understand that conflict.
[Review: Reflections on Ethics, Freedom, Welfare Economics, Policy, and the Legacy of Austrian Economics . By Israel M. Kirzner. Peter J. Boettke and Frédéric Sautet, eds. Liberty Fund 2018. Xiv + 782 pages.] Everyone interested in Austrian economics owes a great debt to the editors of the vast collection of articles by Israel Kirzner, one of the
Today would have been Murray Rothbard’s 93 nd birthday. He was an unforgettable friend, whose immense knowledge of many different fields was unsurpassed in my experience. In a lecture on the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, he mentioned the common objection that the expansion of bank credit might have no effect, if investors anticipated
Revisionist history, as applied to World War I, began as an effort to challenge Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which claimed that the war had been imposed on “the Allied and Associated Governments” by “the aggression of Germany and her allies.” By extension, revisionist history also criticizes the decision of the United States in 1917
People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent . By Joseph E. Stiglitz. Norton, 2019. Xxvii + 371 pages. Joseph Stiglitz is an eminent economist, but it is evident from People, Power, and Profits that he is a moralist as well, and one of a peculiar sort. Early in the book, he says this: “to answer such questions
Economics In Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly . By John Quiggin. Princeton University Press, 2019. Xii + 390 pages. The Australian economist John Quiggin is dissatisfied with Henry Hazlitt’s great book Economics in One Lesson and in his new book endeavors to set its author straight. He says of Hazlitt, “His One
In response to my brief review of an article and book by him, as well as a review of a book by “Bronze Age Pervert,” Michael Anton has written a long attack on me . I do not propose to comment on all of his remarks but only on a few likely to be of interest to readers. Although Mr. Anton and I differ on a great many matters, I should like to
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.