Joseph Salerno writes in today’s Mises Daily: In fact, economists are finally beginning to rediscover Mises’s explanation of the prolonged mass unemployment of the 1930s. For example, UCLA economist Lee Ohanian in his recent paper, “What—or Who—Started the Great Depression,” argues that Hoover’s policies of propping up wages and encouraging work
This point came up in the Mises Academy “Interwar Years” course yesterday evening. One of the most significant background events of the First World War and the wake of the war was of course the Spanish Flu. We used to say that twenty million died worldwide, but recent studies are showing that at least fifty million died, and the death toll may
by Michael S. Rozeff The U.S. has lost manufacturing jobs, and it is not due to increases in productivity in manufacturing or because there is a natural maturation into a services economy. The main reason is the freeing up of labor forces in Asia, particularly China, due to their political reforms. Reforms in China, or movement toward greater free
I have known Guido a long time, and when he was working on the book, I used to goad him by asking frequently, “When are you going to finish that Mises book?” I had no idea what a tremendous project that research was or what magnificent fruit it would bear. After reading it, I wrote to Guido as follows: “I have finally finished reading your great
Writing in the Wall Street Journal on December 23 , Robert Lucas expresses approval of the Fed’s latest reduction of its target range for the Federal Funds Rate to approximately zero, calling it “welcome.” Lucas notes that this policy does not leave the Fed without the ability to inject additional reserves into the banking system, because it can
The Free Market 25, no. 9 (October 2007) The state is the most destructive institution human beings have ever devised—a fire that, at best, can be controlled for only a short time before it o’erleaps its improvised confinements and spreads its flames far and wide. W hatever promotes the growth of the state also weakens the capacity of individuals
The Free Market 26, no. 1 (January 2008) Margaret Atwood’s poem “Siren Song” begins: This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls. Our rulers know how to sing that song, and they sing it day and night. The
The Free Market 26, no. 11 (December 2008) We are now hearing ominous warnings about imminent deflation. Checking the welcome page at AOL this morning, I see that the lead item in the financial news section heralds “The Looming Threat of Deflation.” This headline encapsulates two highly problematic ideas. The first is that deflation would
The Free Market 31, no. 8 (August 2013) For thousands of years, philosophers have argued that society must invest great power in the rulers because only great power can hold back the forces of evil—violence, plunder, and disorder. They have often conceded, however, that this solution has a down side: powerful rulers may themselves resort to
Volume 1, No. 1 (Spring 1998) This volume of F.A. Hayek’s collected works brings together chapters, articles, and reviews Hayek wrote between 1935 and 1949. The volume’s editor, Bruce Caldwell, has divided the contents into three parts: market socialism and the socialist calculation debate; the economics and politics of war; and planning,
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.