In many ways, the rest of America is catching up to truths long known by those who follow the work of the Mises Institute. The MAGA political movement normalized the concept of a parasitic, bureaucratic leviathan immune to the romantic stories we are told about where true governing power lies in our institutions. Covid revealed the sinister, tyrannical urge lurking beneath the facade of government, and the corruptive influence of the state on matters of science. The rise of Bitcoin, the renormalization of gold, and the wider recognition of the Federal Reserve as an inherently political institution has massively expanded the public recognition of the perils of the state control of currency.
There is, perhaps, no one area of daily life that has undergone more thorough scrutiny in recent years than the failings of modern education. From the capture of K-12 curriculums, to the failures and often predatory nature of higher education, recent years have brought about major changes to how average Americans view education.
For almost 40 years, the Mises Institute has provided a solution to these deep-seated issues every summer: Mises University.
Mises University is, of course, not a traditional university program, even though it takes place in the shadow of a very traditional college campus. It is a week-long program dedicated to teaching students—from high school to graduate levels—core insights necessary for civilized society. Rather than state-desired propaganda, students are exposed to knowledge that subverts what they have heard in most of their classrooms: proper economics, revisionist history, and the philosophy of liberty.
These lessons are as important now as ever before.
The students who attend Mises University are surrounded by more information now than ever before. On their phones, a non-stop wave of reels, TikToks, and podcasts, with content that often reflects a hyper-polarized political environment. Zoomers are routinely bombarded with the ideas that basic economics is driven by political will, not the sober reality of tradeoff; that the future is doomed, if the state is not given more power or if their favored political candidates hold power; that political domination is the essential goal to maintain a moral order.
This is not what this year’s students will learn at Mises University. Instead, they will be presented with the timeless wisdom of intellectual giants such as Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard on topics such as the division of labor, entrepreneurship, and the social function of property rights.
Along with these timeless lessons, they will also be presented with better solutions to some of the issues that capture their social media feeds. Debates over tariffs, the realities of the bureaucratic deep state, the consequences of inflation, the bitter scars that remain from covid tyranny, and scathing critiques of the higher education system most of them are currently navigating. Just as important is the intellectual environment fostered on the Mises University campus, enabling them to talk freely and openly with fellow intellectual travelers from around the world.
One aspect of Mises University does share with a traditional college is a sense of fellowship and tradition. Many Mises U alums foster connections with fellow students that last well beyond their week in Auburn. From these experiences, some have gone on to found businesses with each other, or create their own intellectual hubs sharing the lessons they learn with others. This year’s faculty is made up almost entirely of scholars who themselves can count themselves within those ranks.
In this way, Mises University is not only a celebration of the ideas and theories that make up the proud Austrian tradition, it is an essential platform to put these very ideas into practice; an alternative to the state; an essential resource for a freer future.
It is worth always remembering, of course, that this program is only possible because of the generosity of those willing to invest in the cause it serves. While nothing can recreate the experience of attending in person, Virtual Mises University is the closest alternative possible and free for members of the Mises Institute. Videos of its lectures will, of course, be available free and world-wide following the event.
It may have taken decades for the masses to see government-controlled education for what it is, but the Mises Institute stands to provide solutions for those who come to recognize the true nature of the state, now and in the future.
