Praxeology Over Positivism
Professional economists’ certainty with regard to models crafted out of fragmentary data is misguided and has hastened the expansion of the total state.
Rhode Island’s Founder Abandons Liberty
The heroic fighter for liberty out of power is often tempted, once he has the reins of command, to rationalize that now “order” must be imposed — by him.
Laundered Money
The free market can and will respond to the demand of ordinary citizens for a reliable and convenient money.
America’s First Individualist Anarchist
[This article is excerpted from Conceived in Liberty (1975), chapter 22, “Suppressing Heresy: The Flight of Anne Hutchinson.” An MP3 audio file of this chapter, narrated by Floy Lilley, is available for download.]
Prize-Winning Essays on Money and Credit
Two $1,000 prizes were awarded at last week’s 2012 Austrian Scholars Conference for outstanding essays. Fittingly, in the ASC celebrating the centennial of Mises’ first magnum opus, The Theory of Money and Credit (although, in the conference, Guido Hulsmann explained, among other mistranslations in the English edition of the book, how “credit” really should have been translated as “fiduciary media” instead), the prize-winning essays were, respectively, about money and credit. The Lawrence W.
The Libertarian Origins of Rhode Island
The logic of liberty had drastic implications. If the individual conscience is supreme in religious matters, why shouldn’t it extend to civil matters as well?
Krugman on Friedman: An Austrian Approach
Paul Krugman, in a most recent post, argues “Backward moves the macroeconomic debate” with “the result that our economic discourse is significantly more primitive now that it was 70 years ago.” Per Krugman, this backward movement is apparent in the use by some opponents of active demand management policy, such as Amity Shlaes, and of the “supposed legacy of Milton Friedman.”
Two Articles to Refute
For senior scholars with a little spare time, or younger folks who like slaying fallacies, here are two articles to refute.
First, Fareed Zakaria, “The Savior of Europe.” (He’s referring to Mario Draghi, the new head of the ECB.) This is your classic something-for-nothing article: we can create stability, stave off crises, and restore economic health just with a little manipulation by the ECB.
A Temporary Form of Democratic Surplus
Ever heard of social imperialism? That’s an old name for the aggressive foreign policy of governments wishing to deflect attention from the fact that they are unable to solve domestic problems. If you just cannot quite get yourself to repair a public pension system, or a public health system, well, then you might consider invading a few foreign countries to improve things over there. The late Kaiser Wilhelm II was a pioneer of social engineering. In our day he has found emulates all over the western world.
Williamson’s Howlers
The Politically Incorrect Guide series includes many excellent books, but unfortunately Kevin Williamson’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism is not among them. One turns to the book with interest, as the author is a firm opponent of socialism and has read Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. Unfortunately, the book cannot be recommended. Williamson lacks the ability to report facts accurately and his work contains preposterous errors.
Here are some examples. Williamson writes:
