[This article appears in the November–December 2015 issue of The Austrian.]

I’d like to speak today about what political correctness is, at least in its modern version, what it is not, and what we might do to fight against it.

To begin, we need to understand that political correctness is not about being nice. It’s not simply a social issue, or a subset of the culture wars.

It’s not about politeness, or inclusiveness, or good manners. It’s not about being respectful toward your fellow humans, and it’s not about being sensitive or caring or avoiding hurt feelings and unpleasant slurs.

The Austrian: Why did you decide to apply for a Mises Institute fellowship?

If you missed it, Forbes recently reported that a college ranking organization has named the Mises Institute as the #9 most influential think tank in the United States — out of nearly 2,000 organizations!

We are now living in a post-ZIRP world. On Wednesday, Janet Yellen announced that the Federal Reserve will increase the target Federal Funds rate from 0.00-0.25 percent up to 0.25-0.5 percent. While Wall Street approved of the move, Ryan McMaken notes, “The fact that this is being labeled such a large change underscores just how fragile the curre

As you’ve likely heard already, the Republican Party in Congress has joined forces with the Democratic Party to make sure that no government program, no matter how pointless, does not have to suffer the indignity of even the tiniest spending cut. 

James Bovard performs a post mortem on the budget “debate” for USA Today. Just a partial list of outrages listed by Bovard include:

According to the Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) the artificial lowering of interest rates by the central bank leads to a misallocation of resources because businesses undertake various capital projects that — prior to the lowering of interest rates —weren’t considered as viable. This misallocation of resources is commonly described as an economic boom.

According to the website of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the IMF’s purpose is:

to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other.

The last financial crisis and recession drove many to the writings of Austrian economists and the Mises Institute. In fact, I’m in that cohort. And every time the Fed makes headlines, I see this crowd getting larger.

Sub-Groups Within the Anti-Fed Party