Foreword
When Professor Ludwig von Mises died in 1973, he was mourned by friends, associates, and students. His admirers at that time, though not numerous, had recognized him for decades as an intellectual giant and the leading spokesman of the subjective value, marginal utility, “Austrian” school of economics. Yet most of the world paid little attention to his passing.
I. Economic Freedom
At one of his seminars, a student asked Professor Mises, “Why aren’t all businessmen in favor of capitalism?” “That very question,” Mises answered, “is Marxist.” Mises’ response shocked me at the time. It took me some time to realize what he meant. The questioner assumed, as had Karl Marx, that businessmen had a special group or “class” interest in capitalism that other people didn’t.
1. The Economic Foundations of Freedom
Animals are driven by instinctive urges. They yield to the impulse which prevails at the moment and peremptorily asks for satisfaction. They are the puppets of their appetites.
Economic Freedom and Interventionism
Those who own private property in suburbs near Ferguson must hire private security for protection. Malls, shopping centers, and other valuables will be protected with private money. A story linked on Drudge today noted that the wealthy suburb of Clayton includes many private firms turning to private security, but apparently, private firms are being called in throughout the metro area:
[From the Review of Austrian Economics 1, no. 1 (1987).]
The November issue departs from our usual format and takes a look back at 2014 with a special focus on the Mises Institute’s scholars and alumni.
Be sure to check out our interview with Ray Walter, a Mises University Alum who is now working on his PhD in physics and mathematics at the University of Arkansas:
Demand calls forth supply in the world of economic journals as much as in the “real” economic world. The proliferation of new journals since World War II has been a function of the increasing number of Ph.D.s and of the acute exigencies of “publish or perish.” But there is another category of new journals more relevant to this one: periodicals that function as a nucleus and a sounding board for schools of economic thought partially or wholly outside the prevailing neoclassical paradigm.
