With a new year come new opportunities as well as new issues to take into consideration. Here are the five most important issues to keep an eye on in 2017.

Based on page views, these are the most popular articles in December:

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 19, no. 3 (Fall 2016)

ABSTRACT: We develop a simple mathematical version of Garrison’s model. The purpose to develop a mathematical framework is to (1) show how such representation can be used and (2) layout a path for future work that requires a more flexible version of Garrison’s treatment than the graphical exposition. While the graphical model is limited to three dimensions, a mathematical version can include more variables of interest.

We’ve lived through another election season, and as with every election year, the candidates competed to tell us about all the ways they were going to use the power of government to make our lives better. Unfortunately, many voters appeared quite sympathetic to the idea that government action can improve living standards and generally make markets work better.

Literary criticism is a field that mystifies many people. Although its goal of evaluating and commenting on works of literature is straightforward enough, the theories that inform the work of many critics often muddy the waters. Some employ arcane terminology that makes them inaccessible to the uninitiated. Others make assertions that defy common sense, e.g., that an author’s intent has no bearing on how a reader should interpret his work, or that a laundry list has as much intrinsic literary merit as a Shakespearean play.

Today is the 22nd anniversary of Murray Rothbard’s death.  His influence continues to grow, as new generations of students, at the Mises Institute and elsewhere, discover his thought.  Many besides Rothbard’s acknowledged followers have been influenced by him, but one striking example must here suffice. One of the most important books of twentieth-century American philosophy has been Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

Automation has become a huge concern in recent years. With computer algorithms getting more and more sophisticated, machines are becoming increasingly able to do jobs that are many people’s bread and butter.