Guido Hülsmann shows us in this monumental biography that a common view of Mises is mistaken. As even Macaulay’s schoolboy knows, the American economics profession, dominated by Keynesianism, shunted Mises aside when he came to America. He was viewed as a relic, preaching an extremist view of free enterprise; and, as the mainstream had it, his famous calculation argument that showed the impossibility of socialism had been refuted both in theory, by Lange, Taylor et hoc genus omne, and in practice by the immense achievements of Soviet Russia.

The International Agency of Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will be adding overnight shift work as a probable carcinogen. A likely reason for increased incidents of cancer in night workers: reduced production of melatonin — a naturally-produced hormone that can suppress tumor development — due to exposure to lighting at night.

Introduction

The problems and ideas that moved Ludwig von Mises in his early years were addressed by the work of four great economic theorists: Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, and Joseph Schumpeter. He knew all four personally, but Menger had retired from teaching a year before Mises discovered Menger’s Principles. They met for the first time around 1910, when Mises was attending Böhm-Bawerk’s seminar and preparing his first treatise, The Theory of Money and Credit.

[Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. By Brian Doherty. Public Affairs, 2007. X + 741 pages.]

It’s been a grueling Fall 2007, with the continued shocks from the housing mess, the market sell-off, oil still sky high, the dollar hitting new lows, and the rising gold price giving that ever-ominous sign of trouble ahead. Business conditions have deteriorated dramatically. And the gold price reflects a general trend: the consumer and producer price indexes are continuing an uptrend that compares to the steep levels of the mid and late 1970s. And if you really want to wince, take a look at federal spending and debt.

Paul Gottfried’s excellent book lends strong support to a controversial claim of Murray Rothbard’s. In his The Betrayal of the American Right (Mises Institute, 2007), Rothbard argues that the American Old Right could not be considered conservative in the European sense.

It’s been a grueling Fall 2007, with the continued shocks from the housing mess, the market sell-off, oil still sky high, the dollar hitting new lows, and the rising gold price giving that ever-ominous sign of trouble ahead. Business conditions have deteriorated dramatically.