The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian school, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. The conference is hosted by the Mises Institute at its campus in Auburn, Alabama and directed by Joseph Salerno, professor of economics at Pace University and academic vice president of the Mises Institute.

[This article is adapted from a talk presented at the Houston Mises Circle, January 24, 2015.]

Presumably everyone in this room, or virtually everyone, is here today because you have some interest in the topic of secession. You may be interested in it as an abstract concept or as a viable possibility for escaping a federal government that Americans now fear and distrust in unprecedented numbers.

As Mises wrote in 1927:

Ludwig von Mises was careful to establish the individual actor as the basis for all economic analysis. An individual acts to improve his circumstances. To do so, he chooses among various available means in order to achieve his ends. Those ends are based on his individual values, which are subjectively established. Methodological individualism and dynamic subjectivism are distinctive features of Misesian Austrian economics.

In a comment on my interview in the Free Market that ran on the 27th as a Mises Daily asked if there was a video anywhere of my introductory lecture mentioned in the interview.

Much of that lecture was incorporated into my presentation for a Mises Circle in Colorado Springs: Mercantilism[crony capitalism]: The Unvanquished Foe of Liberty. The pdf notes summarize.  

Audio files from all lectures at Saturday’s Mises Circle “Breaking Away: The Case For Secession” are now on Mises.org, iTunesU, and SoundCloud. 

Here are some first photos from Saturday’s Mises Circle which had even larger attendance than last year’s Houston circle with  400 people in attendance including 71 students representing 37 colleges, high schools, and home schools.

One of the great debates today between left and right is whether government stimulus is worth it. The left says “yes, early and often.” And the right says “only in the right circumstances.” Unsurprisingly, both left and right are completely off — stimulus is the quickest way to impoverish an economy.

To see why, we’ll start with America’s most famous burglar, Richard Nixon.