President’s Impact Report — First Quarter 2024

Mises Scholars and Staff

Mises president Tom DiLorenzo appeared on Tom Mullen Talks Freedom on March 11 and discussed the Institute’s mission, the abysmal economics of the two major political parties, and how capitalism can save America again.

Tom also had two articles appear in the New American: “The Tariff of Abominations and the Era of Good Stealings” and “Can John C. Calhoun Save America?”

The Wall Street Journal published a letter from Mises Senior Fellow Alex Pollock, rebutting the Fed’s actions on March 13.

Mises Senior Fellow Robert Murphy participated in a ZeroHedge debate on the fate of the US dollar. The Mises Institute partnered with ZeroHedge to livestream the event on our Mises Media YouTube page. The Human Action Podcast with Bob’s Post-Game Analysis of the debate has been downloaded 37,532 times from mises.org.

Mises staff member Tho Bishop and Senior Fellows/Fellows Peter KleinPaul CwikPatrick NewmanShawn Ritenour, and Per Bylund participated in the Austrian Economics Discord Conference led by 2023 Mises Apprentice Joseph Rich.

Senior Fellows Jeff Herbener and Shawn Ritenour hosted students at Grove City College for their annual Austrian Student Scholars Conference. Professors Peter and Sandy Klein gave plenary lectures, and many of our Mises University alumni, including Samuel Peterson, Zachary Wood, and Ellie Van Farowe, presented their research.

Jonathan Newman, Mises Institute Henry Hazlitt Research Fellow, was interviewed on the Shaun Thompson Show, AM 560 Chicago. He talked about the Federal Reserve’s political nature, big government, and the importance of economic freedom.

Jonathan also appeared on the Rational Egoist podcast, discussing his Mises Wire article, “Bastiat vs. Modern Monetary Theory: A Timeless Refutation.”

Tho Bishop has become a regular guest on Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Faith Radio and Jenna Ellis Tonight on Salem Podcast Network.

Ryan McMaken was invited to participate in a debate on “National Divorce” at the Students for Liberty annual conference “LibertyCon” on February 5th. 

On March 13, Ryan gave a lecture on secession for the Free Enterprise Society at Oklahoma State University. This was followed by a seminar with graduate students on historical examples of peaceful secession. 

On March 14, also at OSU, Ryan gave a talk on the history of state and local militias in the United States, and how the Second Amendment was designed to decentralize military power in the United States.

Mises Club Events

The Mises Clubs are non-Mises events that are organized by enthusiastic people who want to gather together interesting and like-minded people in their local area to talk about topics discussed on mises.org. For information about how to set up a Mises Club in your area, see
mises.org/clubs.

Mises Member Jonas Ejlersen is starting a Mises Club in Denmark and will host the first meeting in September. 

The Mises Club Kentucky held its first meeting on March 16. Dr. Wanjiru Njoya, Mises Research Scholar, spoke to the group about the hopeful outlook for liberty. This event was organized by David and Gretchen Wahlstedt.

Mises Events

Mises Circle in Tampa

On February 17, the Mises Institute returned to Tampa, Florida, for an event dedicated to Inflation: Causes, Consequences, and Cure, with insightful talks from:

Tom DiLorenzo, “Who Benefits from Inflation?”
Patrick Newman“The Redistributive Effects on Monetary Policy”
Joe Salerno“Hyperinflation and the Destruction of Human Personality”

118 attended the talks, and 65 stayed to join a special social hour with the speakers after the event. 

Photos available at mises.org/24Tampa. The event was graciously sponsored by Steve and Amber Shrader and Liberty Villages.

Austrian Economics Research Conference

On March 21, the Institute held AERC, an international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. 

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the South Royalton, Vermont, Austrian Economics Conference. This is the conference that is credited with sparking renewed interest in the Austrian School, which continues to this day. In honor of this landmark event, a special panel and lectures were presented dedicated to evaluating the advances of Austrian economics over the past half century.

The panel featured five scholars who attended the South Royalton as students: Walter Block, Jack High, Randall Holcombe, Murray Sabrin, and Joseph Salerno.

Lectures detailing the impact of South Royalton on future research in Austrian economics were delivered by Per BylundKarl-Friedrich IsraelPatrick Newman, and Jonathan Newman.

This year’s AERC keynote lectures were:

F.A. Hayek Memorial Lecture 
A Case for Argentina’s Dollarization: Why and How to Implement It | Dr. Nicholás Cachanosky

Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture
The Forgotten Austrian: Peter F. Drucker and the Welfare State | Dr. Murray Sabrin

Murray N. Rothbard Memorial Lecture
Knowing Murray in the Early Years (1971–1972) and Why Rothbard and Rand Would Relish 2024: Beginning Collapse of Statism and Its Realities | J. Michael Oliver

Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture 
Ayn Rand and the Austrian Economists | Dr. Edward W. Younkins

Photos from AERC can be found at  https://mises.org/AERC24

AERC Prizes

Lawrence W. Fertig Prize in Austrian Economics for a published paper that best advances economic science in the Austrian tradition was awarded for: “Is It Money Because It Is Redeemed in Tax Payments? A Response to Kelton and Wray” (Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 25 no. 4) by Per Bylund | Oklahoma State University

O.P. Alford III Prize in Libertarian Scholarship for a published paper that best advances political economy was awarded for: “Response to Symposiasts,” Symposium on Wanjiru Njoya’s Economic Freedom and Social Justice: The Classical Ideal of Equality in Contexts of Racial Diversity (Comos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization) by David Gordon and Wanjiru Njoya | Mises Institute

Kenneth Garschina Undergraduate Student Essay Contest Honoring the 80th Anniversary of Ludwig von Mises’s Bureaucracy

First Place: “A Tale of Two Bureaucracies” by David Brady, Jr. | Florida Southern College

Second Place: “Bureaucracy: Applying Mises’s Insights to Our Present Day” by Teyoman Gokcek | Florida Southern College 

Third Place: “Looking Back at the Crossroads: Liberty or Socialism” by Ryan Turnipseed | Oklahoma State University

Honorable Mention: “Bureaucracy and Grove City College: How One College Resisted the Bureaucratization of Higher Education” by Brae Sadler | Grove City College

Kenneth Garschina Graduate Student Essay Contest Honoring the 65th Anniversary of Henry Hazlitt’s The Failure of ‘The New Economics.’

Winner: Hazlitt against Keynes on Unemployment and Wages: A Lesson for Modern Macroeconomics by Benjamin Seevers | West Virginia University

Mises Book Club

Under the guidance of Dr. Richard Gajan at Oklahoma State University, ten graduate and one undergraduate students met weekly to discuss F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom on Tuesday evenings. The students were mostly from OSU’s CEI program, a program dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary scholarship among graduate students. Students participated from a wide range of majors: including mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, business, and entrepreneurship.

Newest Publication

Abundance, Generosity, and the State: An Inquiry into Economic Principles by Jörg Guido Hülsmann was published in March at the Mises Bookstore and Amazon. It was quickly made the #1 New Release on Amazon in Philanthropy and Charity in Amazon’s Kindle Store.

Mises Apprenticeship

The Mises Institute launched our second Mises Apprentice cohort in February, which includes nearly 30 young content creators from around the world. The Mises Apprenticeship features weekly virtual meetings with Mises Institute staff, scholars, and supporters who have careers in fields such as journalism, publications, social media, and publications.

Articles by Mises Apprentices are already being published on the Mises Wire and Power & Market.

Mises Media 

The Mises Institute concluded our animated nine-part series on Progressivism titled The Cost of the Progressives. This is the newest addition to our growing Beginners series of videos.

Top 5 MP3 Downloads

Does Libertarianism Require Support for Open Borders? (The Human Action Podcast”), 249,653
They’ll Never Pay Down the National Debt (Radio Rothbard), 143,841
Anti-Wild Cards (Minor Issues Podcast), 60,209
Epilogue to Part V (A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II) by Murray N Rothbard, 58,293
The Structure of Production (Introduction to Microeconomics, 1986) by Murray N. Rothbard, 55,921

Top 5 MP4 Video Downloads

The Food Pyramid (The Costs of the Progressives), 68,446
Individualism vs. Progressivism (The Costs of the Progressives), 60,378
Factory-Model Schools and Progressive Education (The Costs of the Progressives), 58,578
Public School vs. Homeschooling (The Costs of the Progressives), 53,187
The Baby Formula Shortage and Regulations (The Costs of the Progressives), 38,758

Top 5 PDF Downloads

Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, 188,398
Introduction to Economics by John V. Van Sickle and Benjamin Rogge, 24,845
Bureaucracy by Ludwig von Mises, 20,267
Progress and Poverty by Henry George, 19,854
Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse by Kuehnelt-Leddihn, 18,338

Top 5 YouTube Videos

Who Benefits from Inflation? | Thomas J. DiLorenzo, 25,959
Does Libertarianism Require Support for Open Borders? | The Human Action Podcast,” 23,711
A Strategy Against Woke | Thomas J. DiLorenzo (2021), 20,870
What is Capitalism? (2020) | What is Economics, 20,677
ZeroHedge Debates: The Fate of the US Dollar, 15,812

Top 10 Articles on the Mises Wire or Power & Market

Javier Milei Ended a DC-Sized Deficit in...Nine Weeks by Peter St Onge
It’s Time to End Squatter’s Rights by Ryan McMaken
Javier Milei and the “Battle of Davos” by Phillip Bagus
Are Bankruptcies of Some US States in the Future? by Stephen Anderson
The Fed Prepares for a Bank Crisis While Telling Americans the Economy is Strong by Tho Bishop
The Outrageous Persecution of Julian Assange by Connor O’Keeffe
Covid Showed Us Who Really Rules America by Ryan McMaken
The Money Supply Fell for the Fifteenth Month in a Row as Full-Time Jobs Disappear by Ryan McMaken
The Establishment Is Unmasking Itself by Connor O’Keeffe
Washington’s Planned Theft of Credit Card Benefits by Kevin Van Elswyk

Top Spanish Articles

¿Cuál es la diferencia entre liberalismo y «neoliberalismo»? by Ryan McMaken
¿Qué es el conservadurismo? by Ryan McMaken
4 razones de por qué el socialismo falla by Antony P. Mueller
Diez leyes fundamentales de la economía by Antony P. Mueller
Acción humana: un resumen capítulo por capítulo by Martin Stefunko