Mises and Moral Relativism

I heard several days ago from my friend Larry Beane that people in Walter Block’s seminar who had been reading Theory and History wondered whether Mises is a moral relativist. As I’ll try to show, the answer depends on what you mean by “moral relativist,” but in the way the term is usually understood in contemporary philosophy, he isn’t. I’d like to dedicate this article to the memory of Leo Beane, an outstanding young man of great character and intelligence who was not a moral relativist.

Should Investors Focus on Risk Rather Than Profit?

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

According to the modern portfolio theory (MPT), financial asset prices always fully reflect all available and relevant information, and any adjustment to new information is virtually instantaneous. In this way of thinking, asset prices respond only to the unexpected part of any information, since the expected part is already embedded in prices.

Soviet Terror Was the Natural Evolution of Marx’s Communism

According to Marx, a person’s class determines their ideology. The content of their mind reflects the role their class plays in the current stage of history, which is in turn determined by the developmental stage of the means of production. A person’s class ideology provides them with an interpretation of reality that allows them to behave in the interests of their class. Accordingly, ideologies are collective phenomenon. They are not primarily a reflection of a person’s individual thinking, evaluation of information, or experience.