we’re told, are the very foundation of the economy and thus cannot be subject to competitive pressure or to changes in consumer demand. Butchers and bakers can go This agitation led to congressional enactment of more and more centralized policies, culminating in passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Modeled after Interstate Commerce Commission—the Fed eliminated “cutthroat” banking competition, often denounced as “wildcat banking.” This way the larger more
1980s. That country, economically speaking, appeared to have it all: an industrial policy that knew good and bad investments before markets themselves did, a Banks lend beyond the sum available from private savings, while central bank policy artificially pushes the rate of interest below its market level. Enticed by central banking and fractional-reserve banks. A pure gold standard and truly competitive banking would take their place. The Japanese case shows why anything
subsidies to companies to maintain employment and protect them from international competition. Nor were today’s critics of cronyism pointing to the “Asian Tigers” checkable deposits are liquidated. Bankruptcy is made much more likely by the policy of fractional reserves. The checkable-deposit liabilities built up during the
What is the Mises Institute?
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.