The Misesian: Dr. Jewell, what was your introduction to Austrian economics and the Mises Institute?

Jason Jewell: The presidential election of 2000 was a key moment for me. I was living in Tallahassee at the time, working on my PhD at FSU. As you may remember, Tallahassee was ground zero for the whole “hanging chads” controversy.

Ludwig von Mises wrote:

It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales.

[Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right by Quinn Slobodian (Princeton University Press, 2025; 279pp.]

Quinn Slobodian is a professor of international history at Boston University, so you might expect that he has at least some ability for clear and logically exact arguments. If you expected that, you would be mistaken.

One of the most difficult fallacies to recognize, define, and combat is that of a false analogy—two things may share some similarities and are assumed to be alike in other respects without sufficient evidence. Sometimes a false analogy is obvious. For example, tennis and soccer both use balls and are played on rectangular fields, therefore, they are the same. Other false analogies, however, are more subtle and often begin with, “It’s like…” or “Life is like…”

The Trump administration has tried to cultivate a reputation for preferring “Main Street over Wall Street.” Unfortunately, this image is belied by the administration’s renewed push for artificially low interest rates and monetary inflation. By embracing these policies, Trump has put himself squarely in the camp of “Wall Street over Main Street.” 

PROPHETIC STATESMANSHIP: HARRY JAFFA, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, AND THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
by Edward J. Erler
Encounter Books, 2025; 228 pp.