A common way of understanding the history of welfare economics goes something like this. The British economist A.C. Pigou in his The Economics of Welfare (1920) argued that progressive taxes increase social welfare. By the law of diminishing marginal utility, as you accumulate more dollars, each new dollar is worth less to you than the previous one. Doesn’t it follow, then, that that if money is taxed away from a rich person and given to a poor person, total social welfare will go up?

[Michael Rectenwald was a professor of liberal studies and global liberal studies at NYU from 2008 to 2019. He holds a PhD in literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University, a master’s in English literature from Case Western Reserve University, and a BA in English literature from the University of Pittsburgh.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

It has become clear by now that central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, will be in our future and the technology will fundamentally change the use of money and the economic system as a whole.

[This talk was given at the Mises Institute Spring Seminar Series, Auburn, Alabama, March 5, 2003, and included in Speaking of Liberty (2003).]

The Mises Institute was founded as a research center based on liberal ideas that have always been under fire: the ideas of Mises and the tradition of thought he represents. That means a focus on the Austrian school of economics, and, in political philosophy, individual liberty and the need to prevent the state and its interests from crushing it, as all states everywhere are inclined to do.

Numerous thought leaders agree that climate change is the defining issue of the twenty-first century. To garner widespread support for their cause, activists often present climate change as an existential risk. We are repeatedly told that there is incontrovertible evidence that humans are the main cause of climate change and that its effects are cataclysmic. Failing to uphold any of these positions can result in great reputational damage for pundits and scholars. Due to fear of backlash many choose to remain silent.

The New Historians of Capitalism have unleashed a renaissance in the study of slavery as foundational to American progress. Unlike conservative economists who declaim that slavery impeded industrial development these intellectuals argue that it created multiple economic linkages and fueled the prosperity of Northern states.