Far from being a bucolic utopia, economic conditions were highly unsatisfactory on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The traditional social system was not elastic enough to provide for the needs of a rapidly increasing population.
Without Rothbard Austrian economics and libertarianism would have taken a very different turn.
It becomes evident from Richard von Mises's fundamental work that mathematical probability theory can never be applicable to economics, or to any other study of human action.
All human action stems from the value judgments of individuals. Economics, properly understood, was never so foolish as to believe that all that people are after is higher incomes and lower prices.
The Scholastics were constrained in their development of economics by considerations of deference to authority and by the relatively slow development of the external economic conditions upon which to reflect.
Yoram Hazony’s critique of Hayek highlights interesting fissures in theories of political economy on the Right.
Featuring Hoppe’s remarks from his AERC panel discussion. Sponsored by Steve and Cassandra Torello.
The 2019 Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Hunter Lewis.
There is a persistent myth that capitalism has destroyed what would have been a natural abundance and peace of mind. Yet nature does not generate abundance or peace. The characteristic mark of the "state of nature" is irreconcilable conflict.
Bastiat’s great themes — harmony rather than equilibrium, property versus spoliation, and property and value — have been almost completely neglected in professional economic science during the unfortunate twentieth century.
