Philosophy and Methodology

Recorded at the Mises Institute on 15 June 2005.

The founder of the Chicago School, Frank Knight, was an avowed egalitarian. Rousseau was his influence. Jacobins believed in mass democracy and politics as the only way to implement their ideas. They hated aristocrats and religious leaders. Knight believed in progressive taxation. He wanted neocon social democracy.

The debate still continues. It is all about Mises’ initial article and then book on Socialism in 1922. He demonstrated the necessity of the price system and showed how subjective values were transformed into objective prices which could be used as meaningful cardinal numbers in economic calculation.

Gene Callahan recounts a forgotten period of intellectual history when the obsession with modelling crowded out the search for truth. 

For the editors of The Changing Face of Economics (Colander, Holt, and Rosser, University of Michigan Press, 2004) "cutting edge" is more than a phrase. 

Just what accounts for the people's love affair with government?

A common rejoinder to the program of laissez-faire is that market failures require government intervention. Just what does market failure mean, asks Gil Guilory.

We tend to think of economics as a sterile, number-clotted discipline, writes Colby Cosh, but most of the great economists have antagonized the received wisdom of their day.

We can still be good citizens, writes Lew Rockwell. This is far more important to the future of liberty than how we vote.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Ayn Rand's birth. Her books sold in the millions and were most effective in transforming a generation of readers into ardent anti-communists and strong capitalists.