Articles of Interest

Indeed, the origins of economic theory itself can be traced to CantilIon. William Stanley Jevons, one of the cofounders of the marginalist revolution, and the economist who is generally credited with rediscovering Cantillon, called the Essai "a systematic and connected treatise, going over in a concise manner nearly the whole field of economics…. It is thus the first treatise on economics." He dubbed the work the "Cradle of Political Economy." Joseph Schumpeter, the great historian of economic thought and student of Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, described the Essai as "the first systematic penetration of the field of economics." In his treatise on the history of economic thought, Murray N. Rothbard named Cantillon "the founding father of modern economics."

Claude Frederic Bastiat was a French economist, legislator, and writer who championed private property, free markets, and limited government. Perhaps the main underlying theme of Bastiat's writings was that the free market was inherently a source of "economic harmony" among individuals, as long as government was restricted to the function of protecting the lives, liberties, and property of citizens from theft or aggression. To Bastiat, governmental coercion was only legitimate if it served "to guarantee security of person, liberty, and property rights, to cause justice to reign over all."

Margit and Ludwig von Mises were a magnificent team. Margit was unsurpassed in devotion to Mises the person in life and in perpetuating his memory and his ideas after his death.

The prehistory the Austrian School of economics can be found in the works of the Spanish scholastics written in the "Spanish Golden Century."

Every four years, as the November presidential election draws near, I have the same daydream: that I don’t know or care who the president of

“I champion an economic order ruled by free prices and markets...the only economic order compatible with human freedom.”

The 1920s and 1930s were a glorious era in the history of the Austrian School of economics.

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (Born February 12, 1851; Died 1914) was in the right place at the right time to contribute importantly to the development of Austrian economics. Studying at the University of Vienna, he was twenty years old when Carl Menger's Principles of Economics appeared in print in 1871. His formal university training was in law (and thus he was not actually a student of Menger's), but after completing his doctorate in law in 1875, he began preparing himself both at home and abroad to teach economics in his native Austria.

ANNE ROBERT JACQUES TURGOT'S career in economics was brief but brilliant, and in every way remarkable. In the first place, he died rather young, and second, the time and energy he devoted to economics was comparatively little. He was a busy man of affairs, born in Paris to a distinguished Norman family which had long served as important royal officials. Turgot's father, Michael-Etienne, was a Councillor of the Parliament of Paris, a master of requests, and top administrator of the city of Paris. His mother was the intellectual and aristocratic Dame Magdelaine-Francoise Martineau.

One of the most notable economists and social philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig von Mises, in the course of a long and highly productiv