Phil Duffy

Articles

Ken Burns Plays the “Founding Chaos” Card

12/11/2025 Mises Wire Phil Duffy

In the new Ken Burns documentary, an old myth—held by the left and right—is repeated: that chaos led to the need for the Constitution and a stronger national government.

Leo XIV and Rerum Novarum

07/04/2025 Mises Wire Phil Duffy

When Cardinal Robert Prevost was named Pope, he took the name of Pope Leo XIV. Leo XIII authored Rerum Novarum, which is the basis for Catholic social teaching and is friendlier to private property and free markets than anything the Vatican has produced since then.

The Madness of Presidential Tariffs

03/13/2025 Power & Market Phil Duffy

The media today is fixated on presenting the economic and emotional cases for and against tariffs. As a result, politicians are free to spew their propaganda and the people become roadkill.

Media

Leo XIV and Rerum Novarum

07/04/2025 Phil Duffy

Repeating the Interventionist Excesses of the Tudor Period

10/23/2024 Phil Duffy

Modern historians romanticize the reign of the Tudors in England, but in reality, they were brutal to their subjects and they centralized power to the detriment of the people. Governments today continue this march against freedom.

Creating Wealth: The Cantillon or the Smith Way

05/07/2024 Phil Duffy

Although mainstream economists hold that Adam Smith is the father of modern economics, it was Richard Cantillon that recognized the centrality of entrepreneurship in economic development.

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.