Many economic historians are concerned about the possibility of large-scale offshoring of jobs from the United States and Europe to China, India, and other countries. They speak of another Industrial Revolution, the third since the 18th century, that will transform commerce and industry and require painful adjustments. The first revolution brought
Inflationomics, in popular terminology, indicates the sway of inflation thought in education and the affairs of government. It permeates political life and behavior, especially when economic policies are discussed and decided. It usually speaks well of an increase in the amount of money by a central bank and of deliberate expansion of bank credit
Good intentions, when guided by error and ignorance, may have undesirable consequences. There is no better example than minimum wage legislation. It means to raise the wages and improve the living conditions of poor workers but actually condemns many to chronic unemployment. It forcefully raises the costs of unskilled and inexperienced labor and
Medical expenses are rising faster than the costs of any other service. They are climbing at rates that exceed not only those of inflation and dollar depreciation but even the Federal government itself. In fact, they are consuming an ever larger share of personal and national incomes. Some 40 years ago American medical spending was estimated at 5
[This article is excerpted from the book The Age of Inflation . ] The German inflation of 1914–1923 had an inconspicuous beginning, a creeping rate of one to two percent. On the first day of the war, the German Reichsbank, like the other central banks of the belligerent powers, suspended redeemability of its notes in order to prevent a run on its
Few American economists have wielded as much influence on economic thought and policy as the late Milton Friedman. He was an articulate and ardent advocate of free markets and personal liberty. In 1962, his Capitalism and Freedom , which continues to be in print with nearly one million copies sold, pointed the way not only to economic but also
[This article originally appeared in The Freeman , October 1969 .] Although the Great Depression engulfed the world economy many years ago, it lives on as a nightmare for individuals old enough to remember and as a frightening specter in the textbooks of our youth. Some 13 million Americans were unemployed, “not wanted” in the production process.
Among other things, the appearance of the German Volkswagen on American highways has stirred the imagination of the friends of free enterprise. Here, apparently, is another visual proof of the superiority of capitalism over socialism, another demonstration of West Germany’s abandonment of economic controls, another evidence that Germans have
“Sold Out” (1929) by Rollin Kirby Early 1955 finds the American public swamped by forecasts of prosperity and boom. Economic advisers to governments, corporations, universities, labor unions and other groups seem to have resolved in unison to assure the people that a depression like that of the 1930s has been banned forever from the American
Few books have contributed more to the advancement of monetary theory than Ludwig von Mises’s Theory of Money and Credit . And yet, few serious books have had such little impact on contemporary thought and policy as this treatise. The world continues to ignore or reject it while it is clinging to antiquated notions and practices. Of course, it is
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.