This article is adapted from a portion of the Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture, delivered by James Grant at the Mises Institute’s 2014 Austrian Economics Research Conference.
Argentina’s economic minister, Axel Kicillof, has become famous for his assertion that it is possible to centrally manage the economy now because we have spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel. This assertion comes from the mistaken view that the cost of production determines final prices, and it reveals a profound misunderstanding of the market process. This issue, however, is not new. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the debate over economic calculation under socialism.
Many Americans, perhaps a substantial majority, still believe that, irrespective of any problems they may have caused, labor unions are fundamentally an institution that exists in the vital self-interest of wage earners. Indeed, many believe that it is labor unions that stand between the average wage earner and a life of subsistence wages, exhausting hours of work, and horrific working conditions.
Mises Institute: Why were you invited to debate at Oxford?
Randall G. Holcombe recently spoke with the Mises Institute about his new textbook Advanced Introduction to the Austrian School of Economics, now available from Edward Elgar Publishing.
Mises Institute: Why did you decide to write this book?
According to mainstream economics textbooks, one of the primary functions of money is to measure the value of goods and services exchanged on the market. A typical statement of this view is given by Frederic Mishkin in his textbook on money and banking. “[M]oney ... is used to measure value in the economy,” he claims. “We measure the value of goods and services in terms of money, just as we measure weight in terms of pounds and distance in terms of miles.”
This article is a selection from “The Ethics of Entrepreneurship and Profit,” a lecture delivered by Prof. Hoppe at the University of Reading, England in June 2014.
The capitalist entrepreneur acts with a specific goal in mind: to attain a monetary profit. He saves or borrows saved money, he hires labor, and he buys or rents raw materials, capital goods, and land.
A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property
by Butler Shaffer
Mises Institute, 2014, 62 pgs.
Author of The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur, Peter Klein has published numerous books and articles on entrepreneurship from an Austrian perspective. Dr. Klein was interviewed in late 2013 by eTalk’s Niaz Uddin on the topic of entrepreneurship:
Niaz Uddin: Tell us about entrepreneurship. What are the different contexts of entrepreneurship?
Benjamin Powell’s new book Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy was recently published by Cambridge University Press. Dr. Powell spoke with the Mises Institute about his new book.
Mises Institute: Describe for us what you mean by “sweatshop.”
