In reviewing the contributions of Adam Smith to the growth of economics Hans Brems writes that “[m]uch of what Smith had to say had been said before—but in French. Academic etiquette of his day demanded no acknowledgements, and he offered none.” This is an unusually clear statement of a point of view that appears to circulate through much of the economics profession. Adam Smith, it would appear, borrowed much without acknowledgement.
The eighteenth-century opponents of the U.S. Constitution have been derided by some historians as politically naive and intellectually inferior to their Federalist counterparts.
Two objection have recently been made to the model of the free market without government. These objections suggest that the model may be self-defeating, in at least two different ways. The problems about to be discussed have been raised by Robert Nozick in his recent Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and have been used by him to argue against the model, and on behalf of what he calls the “minimal state”.
Professor Spengler refers to Richard Cantillon as the first of the modems. Professor Tarascio presents him from a current perspective. But it was the world as he knew it that Cantillon sought to explain. Inevitably he was a man of his time and it is primarily in that light that I should like to look at him. In so doing I shall concentrate on three of the topics with which Professor Tarascio deals, namely, value, money, and the entrepreneur.
The Mises Institute is honored to be taking over the public action of The Journal of Libertarian Studies, one of the most important scholarly journals to appear in the history of ideas. In a market too often dominated by conventional wisdom, academic log-rolling, and risk-averse research with no practical application, the JLS, from its inception in 1977, has been committed to providing an outlet for cutting-edge thought that engages the world we live in. The table of contents of back issues is the best proof.
It is the task of this paper to describe what can happen to “a good cause” when it is “ineptly defended,” and to address the problem of the relationship between a verbal free-market support and advocacy in general on one hand, and practical political statements and policy measures adopted by these rhetorically free market politicians on the other. All this will be grounded in the experience of the people of the Czech Republic after the annus mirabilis of 1989, so the real examples from the development since 1990 will provide the analysis with some empirical evidence.
Thomas Sowell provides examples of people from many parts of the world demanding that their governments restrict the economic and occupational success of specific ethnic or racial groups. However, when the same people act as individuals or business owners, they actively resist and/or circumvent these restrictions.
In 1981 the Federal Register published a declaration from President Reagan: “I determine that it is in the national interest for the Export-Import Bank of the United States to extend a credit in the amount of $120.7 million to the Socialist Republic of Romania (for) the purchase of two nuclear steam turbine generators.”
This loan carried an interest rate of 7¾% for ten years, but the first payment wasn’t due until July, 1989.
Our country is beset by a large number of economic myths that distort public thinking on important problems and lead us to accept unsound and dangerous government policies. Here are ten of the most dangerous of these myths and an analysis of what is wrong with them.
Myth #1: Deficits are the cause of inflation; deficits have nothing to do with inflation.
Mrs. Mises delivered this speech on February 27, 1984, at the Mises Institute dinner in her honor in New York City.
Thank you, Mr. Rockwell, for your most generous and gracious remarks. Thank you all who came here tonight, for without you, I would not be here. And thank you especially for your kind welcome. I know, of course, that this welcome is really meant for my husband, in whose name I gladly and gratefully accept it.
