On May 14, Mises Institute opened its doors to a brand-new program developed in honor of Murray Rothbard’s 100th birthday: Rothbard University. The objective was simple: to recreate the magic of our summer student program Mises University in a format specifically for professionals.

On Saturday, April 25, 2026, the Mises Institute met at the San Diego Mission Bay Resort for California’s Decline: A Warning to America. For much of its history, California stood out, not only as a land of remarkable natural beauty and extensive natural resources, but as a place with institutions that fueled extraordinary wealth creation.

That is what makes its decline so important to understand. The central question of the day was how a state with so much going for it has been driven into such serious dysfunction, and how the rest of the country can avoid following the same path.

There is a certain seductive logic to watching your rival gain advantage through state support and concluding that you should respond in kind. Across the American political spectrum, from think tanks like the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation to conservatives who once treated “picking winners” as a term of derision, industrial policy has staged a remarkable comeback.