Interest is a core price in capitalism, transmitting resources across time rather than space and allowing entrepreneurs to transform resources into more productive forms that produce outputs of greater consumer value. Modern capitalism finally took off from the primitive market economy when markets developed with financier capitalists funding the capital goods necessary to increase labor productivity and wages and unleashing the Industrial Revolution.
This article first appeared on the Mises Wire May 11, 2021.
One of Ludwig von Mises’s brilliant achievements was his elucidation of Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) in his great 1912 work The Theory of Money and Credit. Mises expanded upon preexisting Austrian capital theory, which stresses the importance of time and uncertainty associated with the transformation of inputs like labor and natural resources into the final goods desired by consumer
Yields on Japanese government bonds have risen in recent weeks on worries about Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s budget discipline, while the yen has weakened.
It was at the height of the Cold War that the CIA and the American government—fearing the weakening of the capitalist bloc in Latin America due to the influence of Liberation Theology in the southern part of the continent—began subsidizing Protestant missions, mostly of Pentecostal denomination, with the intent of diluting Catholic presence and preventing the spread of Marxist ideals through religion.
Ten years ago, as the world’s governments met in Paris and agreed to eventually force policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions on their respective populations, combating climate change was seen as a major political issue.
