Crony capitalism is everywhere around us. We are so used to it that we often don’t even notice it. Any time a privately-owned business uses its influence on government officials (e.g., friendship, money, or other favors) to shape government policies in its favor or to avoid the enforcement of the existing laws, we are faced with an example of crony capitalism. Crony capitalism reduces the accountability of politicians and businesspeople for their actions and it also infringes on the freedom of others to compete in the marketplace.

In a recent speech of which Politico claims absolutely energized the “Progressive” left, Elizabeth Warren laid out her so-called 11 Commandments of Progressivism.

There is a story about the great Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali. It is said that in the last years of his life, when he was already famous, he signed checks knowing that they would not be submitted to the bank for payment. Rather, after partying with his friends and consuming the most expensive items the restaurants had to offer, he would ask for the bill, pull out one of his checks, write the amount, and sign it. Before handing over the check, he quickly turned it around, made a drawing on the back and autographed it.

During an early scene of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, in which the hyper-intelligent apes were depicted hunting for deer in the forest surrounding their settlement, someone behind me interjected “if those apes are so smart, how come they’re hunter-gatherers?” While a decent question, he received nothing but a shush from his more etiquette-conscious companion for raising it.

[Editor’s Note: This month marks the 43rd anniversary of Nixon’s closing of the gold window. This article originally appeared in The Free Market in January 2004.]

“The world is in permanent monetary crisis,” Murray N. Rothbard once observed, “but once in a while, the crisis flares up acutely, and we noisily shift gears from one flawed monetary system to another.” Monetary systems built on floating fiat currencies are fragile things. Most of the world currently operates under this arrangement.

The following are six of the most prevalent economic myths that appear time and again in the mainstream media. I will give a brief description of each and a brief description of the economic reality, as seen from an Austrian perspective.

Myth 1: Increased money leads to economic prosperity.

This Keynesian myth postulates that increasing aggregate demand through increasing the money supply will lead to more spending, higher employment, increased production, and a higher overall standard of living.

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. Apparently, Argentine officials have much to learn from this old debate.

The following is the transcript from a talk delivered at the 2014 Houston Mises Circle. Video of the talk is available here.

In the ebb and flow of interventionist politics, there are some issues that surface periodically regardless of how many times and how completely they are proven to be harmful to the very people they are purported to help. Currently the tide is once again carrying the minimum wage to the forefront of collective attention. Supporters of this and similar measures often use straw-man arguments, like the one in the picture below.

In February, the Federal Reserve made a cursory observation that the unusually severe winter was partly to blame for the stagnant pace of the US economy. The news media, ranging from liberal to conservative, all highlighted the Fed’s report and provided their respective “spin” on how the weather damages the economy. But soon enough, focus turned back to the brutally cold temperatures and not winter’s economic impact.