The Misesian: Dr. Fegley, you were a Mises University student and a repeat Mises Research Fellow. Can you speak to the influence that had on your academic career?

Tate Fegley: My first Mises U was back in 2010, between my junior and senior years at Boise State, and it had a big effect on me. I wish I had done it sooner, since it connected me with other Austrians at Boise State for the first time.

Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 
Edited by Paul Reitter and Paul North
Translated by Paul Reitter
Princeton University Press, 2024

The Misesian: Unfortunately, we live in an age of a “mixed economy” and “regulated capitalism.” This means that the private sector and the government sector are mixed together, and it’s not always clear where the state ends and the private sector begins. How can we determine if a private company is a true partner of the state— truly benefiting from state power—or if the private company is really a victim of the state?

President Joe Biden’s decision to posthumously pardon Marcus Garvey has been met with widespread acclaim in the United States and across the global black diaspora. Garvey is revered as an iconic black nationalist and Pan-Africanist thinker, celebrated for his vision of racial uplift and economic self-sufficiency. However, his legacy is far more complex than the hagiographic portrayals suggest.

How many times have you seen a politician, businessman, union, or activist group clamoring for the government to do something on the grounds that it will improve the public weal? “We need higher minimum wages to benefit the working class,” a union official says.

On the night of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, American insurrectionists donned disguises and destroyed a shipment of tea imported by the East India Company. The protestors boarded privately owned ships in the harbor and threw the tea overboard. Later that night, the activists discovered another tea shipment that had been unloaded at a warehouse. Not content with having destroyed most of the company’s import, they broke into the warehouse and destroyed that tea, too. The total damages amounted to more than $1.5 million in today’s dollars.

Most Americans realize that our federal government has, in recent decades, spent so recklessly that it runs ever-increasing annual federal budget deficits (currently nearly $2 trillion) and now sits on over $36 trillion in outstanding federal debt. This spending—overseen by Congress and the Executive branch—has been profligate since the 1960s Great Society, wars in Vietnam and the Middle East, the 2008-09 financial crisis, the ongoing Obamacare entitlement, and the 2020-22 Covid pandemic.

The latest figures published by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are staggering. $75 billion saved in two weeks. Some of the items they have slashed are astonishing, including payments to transgender musicals in Ireland, DEI in Serbia, or decolonization of curriculum vitae. This is a two-week result, so it should be applauded. However, there is a lot more that needs to be done.