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In 1905, sociologist Max Weber posited that the economic inequalities between Germany’s Protestants and Catholics arose from a fundamental difference in values. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, he described Protestantism’s high esteem for effort and austerity, and its general encouragement of hard work and prudent savings. This, Weber argued, explained the discrepancies in the rates of capital accumulation and overall prosperity between the religious groups.

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Six hundred dollars, two thousand, or how about one million per person? How much money should a government give its people to get the wheels of commerce turning again?

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The mechanism propping up (or holding down, depending on perspective) this apparatus known as the US economy can be visualized in a few charts, allowing us to see how fragile “the system” really is. In the last week of the year we see:

Mises often answers attacks on praxeology with a “minimalist” strategy. By this I mean that he denies that praxeology rests on controversial philosophical positions. By avoiding philosophical disputes, he tries to stay out of trouble he doesn’t need. He says, in effect, “We have an a priori grasp of the concept of action, and we can deduce various truths that follow from this concept. We also know that this concept applies to reality—actions exist. That’s all we need.” In what follows, I’ll give some examples of how Mises follows this strategy.

When questioned about the propriety of eating meat on Christmas if it fell on a Friday, Saint Francis of Assisi reportedly responded:

You sin, Brother, calling the day on which the Child was born to us a day of fast. It is my wish that even the walls should eat meat on such a day, and if they cannot, they should be smeared with meat on the outside.

Francis, of course, was known for his austere lifestyle, yet he correctly concluded it was a terrible idea to forgo the basic material pleasures of life on a day like Christmas.