Pikachu is a yellow mouse and the internationally-recognized mascot of the Pokémon Franchise. Pokémon’s beginning was a game and disconnected (“Pocket Monsters”) playing cards decades ago. Over time, it has spawned a TV series, a monopoly game, and a worldwide card collection fever. The tangible cards are now an ersatz currency to reward chore completion, trade for other cards, cash, and bitcoin. Bartering lives, and the card collection fever illustrates Austrian economics.

The Telegraph recently headlined a report titled ‘Monstrous’ Equality Act has gone too far, warns Lord Sewell. It seems that conservatives in the UK believe the Equality Act 2010, which is based on the same principles as civil rights legislation in the United States, has “gone too far.”

[This is a chapter from The Problem of Production: A New Theory of the Firm.]

[Chapter 19 of The Conquest of Poverty (1996)]

The socialists and communists propose to cure poverty by seizing private property, particularly property in the means of production, and turning it over to be operated by the government.

“By July 2026, the libertarian president’s approval rating has plummeted to 35.5 percent, with disapproval surging to 63 percent...”

Writing for Americans about the cultural background of Ludwig von Mises, an eminent former compatriot of mine, poses some difficulties: how to present you with a world radically different from yours, a world far away, which in many ways no longer exists. For example, the birthplace of this eminent economist was for nearly fifty years within the confines of the Soviet Union. Who was this great man and scholar? In what ambiance did he live before he came to the United States, where he continued to publish his crucially important works and to inspire new generations of economists?