I first met Professor Salin in late 1997, in his office at the University of Paris-Dauphine. When I mentioned that I had been drawn to the Austrian School not least of all because of Mises’s epistemology, he raised his eyebrows and put on a skeptical face. I stopped talking and he threw in with amusement, “And all of economics is for you nothing but applied epistemology.”
How prevalent has political corruption been over recorded history—and how did it originate? Quite an inkling as to its prevalence and origin can be found in a book written by H. J. Haskell and published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1939. The book is The New Deal in Old Rome.
The average man lacks the imagination to realize that the conditions of life and action are in a continual flux. As he sees it, there is no change in the external objects that constitute his well-being. His world view is static and stationary. It mirrors a stagnating environment. He knows neither that the past differed from the present nor that there prevails uncertainty about future things. He is at a complete loss to conceive the function of entrepreneurship because he is unaware of this uncertainty.
One day in 1927 Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, stood at the window of his office at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, and looked out over the Ringstrasse (the main grand boulevard that encircles the center of Vienna). He said to his young friend and former student, Fritz Machlup, “Maybe grass will grow there, because our civilization will end.” He also wondered what would become of many of the Austrian School economists in Austria. He suggested to Machlup that, clearly, they would have to immigrate, perhaps, to Argentina, where they might find work in a Buenos Aires nightclub.
[Newsweek column from May 26, 1952, and reprinted in Business Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt.]
At his press conference on May 8, Mr. Truman, asked whether the chief danger was inflation or deflation, replied that the country had to guard against both: and that was why it was necessary to have control powers — to prevent either one.
Judge Andrew Napolitano and Gerri Willis discuss Trump’s new tariffs and how they will affect everyday Americans.
Not surprisingly, Napolitano takes strong anti-tariff views, and also notes it’s unconstitutional for the President to impose taxes without the explicit approval of Congress. wishing to dodge responsibility, however, the Congress has abandoned its role in taxation.
In his introductory remarks, last week, Joe Salerno articulated the strategic importance and uniqueness of the Mises Institute’s annual Austrian Economics Research Conference. If you missed the live broadcasts, those videos are available on Mises.org.
International trade hasn’t had a very good time lately.
