Scotland's celebrated free banks were neither free nor superior.
Audio Essays
Narrated version of important essays.
The problem with socialism was never the wrong people in charge. It was socialism.
It's not the starving artist who resents capitalism—it's the millionaire columnist.
Contrary to age-old prejudices, the wealth of the rich is not the cause of the poverty of the poor, but helps to alleviate that poverty. No matter whether it is their intention or not, almost anything that the rich can legally do tends to help the poor.
Aristotle called interest unnatural. Aquinas called it unjust. For centuries, the Church banned it. Guido Hülsmann argues they were wrong about the free market—but accidentally right about the fiat system.
The question is not plan or no plan. Everyone plans. The question is whose plan—and what happens to yours when it conflicts with the planner's. Mises traces the path from Marx to Comte to the social engineers, and shows why the destination is always the same.
Every nation-state boundary was drawn by force. Should we treat them as sacred the same way we treat a house or factory? Rothbard says no, and proposes something more radical.
Rothbard argues that genuine science in the social realm starts with clear logic about human action.
Today, the term "Austrian economics" is used to designate two very different paradigms.
Rothbard lays bare the truth: peace serves people, war serves the state.
The challenge facing economic science is to counter the states and governments that smother voluntary cooperation and free human interaction.
Originally published in the Mises Institute’s Studies in Classical Liberalism series in 1999. The text of this essay is available at https://mises.org/essays-political-economy/cultural-background-ludwig-von-mises
Butler Shaffer's contribution to libertarian legal theory and an indispensable guide to a vital topic.
Narrated by Harold Fritsche. Music by Kevin MacLeod.
Narrated by Harold Fritsche. Music by Kevin MacLeod.
This essay originally appeared in the Review of Austrian Economics 7, No. 2 (1994), pp. 75–90, as “The Consumption Tax: A Critique”. Narrated by Harold Fritsche . Music by Kevin MacLeod .
Originally published in Playboy in March 1969, this essay is narrated by Jeff Riggenbach. Music by Kevin MacLeod.
Stolyarov reviews Robert P. Murphy’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal (2009).
“The Candlemakers’ Petition” is a well known satire of protectionism written and published in 1845, as part of Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms. This audio essay is narrated by Gennady Stolyarov, II.
Includes a summary by Frank van Dun. Preface by F.A. Hayek. Read by Josiah Schmidt.
From Chapter I of The Bastiat Collection: Volume I. Pages 1-48 in the text. Read by Josiah Schmidt.
Taken from Free Market Economics: A Basic Reader, compiled by Bettina Bien Greaves (pp. 227-231). Narrated by Floy Lilley.
Chapter 13 in The Ethics of Money Production. From Part 2, “Inflation,” pages 175-191. Narrated by Floy Lilley.
From Chapter IX of The Bastiat Collection: Volume II: “Harmonies of Political Economy (Book Two)”. Pages 481-505 in the text. Narrated by Brannon King.
The audio version of Leonard Read’s classic essay. Narrated by Floy Lilley.
Austrian Economics offers an elegant, logical, and thoroughly causal explanation of how money came to be, again demonstrating the power of the free market to spontaneously organize human activity in meaningful and universally beneficial ways.
This audio essay is narrated by Gennady Stolyarov, II.
This address was originally delivered before the University Club of New York on April 18, 1950. This audio essay is narrated by Gennady Stolyarov, II.
