Belgium is not only the host country to the central planners from the European Commission in Brussels. It is also the land of great charming historical commercial towns such as Bruges, Antwerp, and Gent. If you happen to be in the area: next Tuesday yours truly shall deliver two lectures for the Flemish liberal student association in Gent. The
More monetary competition , this is the promising title of Markus Kerber’s new book, in which he makes the case for establishing currency competition to solve the current conflicts within the Eurozone. Kerber is a law professor at my alma mater and for this reason alone, of course, his book deserves attention. Moreover, he is the founder and
Kenneth Gerbino discusses the money supply , and calls Mises’ Theory of Money and Credit “one of the most insightful economic books ever written”. Russ Winter notes that, while the Fed has recently talked tough about “fighting inflation”, they have stepped up purchases of treasuries (with brand-new fiat dollars). Prior to May 7, the 52-week
Ever heard of social imperialism? That’s an old name for the aggressive foreign policy of governments wishing to deflect attention from the fact that they are unable to solve domestic problems. If you just cannot quite get yourself to repair a public pension system, or a public health system, well, then you might consider invading a few foreign
There’s a brand of whiny, journalists who use nostalgia to attack the affluence that capitalism has bestowed on us. Usually, they flash their columns on July 4th. Their gimmick is selfishness masked in childhood memories. The scene is always one of youthful recollection; the bucolic picnic grounds, rippling lake, quaint rural paradise of their
He talked to her after dinner, and they went to a dance club. Apparently Mises was a poor dancer -- at least by Margit’s standards -- and so they spent most of the night talking. Actually she did most of the talking and he listened attentively. Margit was an attractive woman of five-foot-four, with brown hair and grey-blue eyes. Now, as they
It may seem unusual that an economist would talk about culture. Usually, we talk about prices and production, quantities produced, employment, the structure of production, scarce resources, and entrepreneurship. But there are certain things that economists can say about the culture, and more precisely, that economists can say about the
[ Author’s note: This essay is adapted from my preface to the Chinese edition of The Ethics of Money Production , available here in its English version . This is the first time the essay has been published in English .] Today, in all countries of the world, the production of money is controlled by government interventions. In particular,
This magazine is pretty high profile in Germany, and this article is the latest installment of a series on “great economists.” Mises is being referred to by mainstream journalists in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as a matter of course. Recently the upper house of the Luxembourg parliament published a minority report on the economic crisis
[ This article is re-printed from the “International Debate on Re-Industrialization” published in the March 2015 issue of TSEconomist . ] Let me first state my position and then add a few arguments to back it up. Economic growth typically entails a re-allocation of labor away from industrial production, but it does not all by itself lead 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.