Mises Daily

"Austrian" economics owes its name to the historical fact that it was founded and first elaborated by three Austrians.

A reason for ongoing opposition to markets stems from the fact that for many centuries intellectuals, aristocrats, and government officials have believed the ancient doctrine that making money in the marketplace is degrading. 

One day, the Institute publishes an article criticizing Republicans. The Left cheers, but the Rights denounces us. The next day we criticize Democrats and the Right cheers while the Left is enraged. Yet our position is always consistently against the state. 

By keeping the population in a state of artificially heightened apprehension, the government-cum-media prepares the ground for planting specific measures of taxation, regulation, surveillance, reporting, and other invasions of the people's wealth, privacy, and freedoms. 

The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny; the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also ... "You shall do as we will, and not as you will," is in either case the declaration.

"The few independent thinkers who have the courage to question these dogmas are virtually outlawed, and their ideas cannot reach the reading public. ... 'progressive' propaganda and indoctrination has well succeeded in enforcing its taboos. "

Hamilton was "so bewitched & perverted by the British example," wrote Jefferson, "as to be under thoro' conviction that corruption was essential to the government of a nation."

It is striking that the major resurgence of Scholastic ideas came out of Austria in the late 19th century, a country that had avoided a revolutionary political or theological upheaval. If we look at Menger's own teachers, we find successors to the Scholastic tradition.

Could there be a more doleful proof of the sterility of European civilization than that it can be spread by no other means than fire and sword?

Hardly anyone talks of the table of virtues and vices anymore, but in reviewing them, we find that they nicely sum up the foundation of bourgeois ethics, and provide a solid moral critique of the modern state.