Every four years, as the November presidential election draws near, I have the same daydream: that I don’t know or care who the president of the United States is. More importantly, I don’t need to know or care. I don’t have to vote or even pay attention to debates. I can ignore all campaign commercials. There are no high stakes for my family or my
“A return to Austrian School tenets, both in capital theory and in monetary theory, and also in business-cycle theory, is absolutely needed.” The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation by Fritz Machlup (1931, 1940): translated from a revised version of the German edition by Vera C. Smith (a pdf file). Read an interview with Machlup in the
The Origin of Economic Theory: A Portrait of Richard Cantillon (1680–1734) Many crucial Austrian insights have been found in the economics of Irish banker Richard Cantillon (1680–1734) and his lone surviving publication, Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General . It seems clear that Cantillon was an important influence on the development of
“The theory of capital lacks a simple dimension for the measurement of its subject matter. To some minds this makes it all the more attractive.” Introduction: his life and work Ludwig Lachmann was a very unusual man. If you ever met him you would never forget him. He left a lasting impression. He was unfailingly gracious and considerate, a man
“A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.” F. A. Hayek is undoubtedly the most eminent of the modern Austrian economists. Student of Friedrich von Wieser, protégé and colleague of Ludwig von Mises, and foremost representative of an outstanding generation of Austrian school theorists,
The prehistory the Austrian School of economics can be found in the works of the Spanish scholastics written in what is known as the “Spanish Golden Century,” which ran from the mid- sixteenth century through the seventeenth century. Who were these Spanish intellectual forerunners of the Austrian School of economics? Most of them were scholastics
The 1920s and 1930s were a glorious era in the history of the Austrian School of economics. In those days, the city of Vienna saw the first genuine culture of scholars working in the tradition established by Carl Menger, and this culture radiated throughout the rest of the German-speaking world and into other countries. Many important works of
Ludwig von Mises (29 Sept. 1881-10 Oct. 1973), economist and social philosopher, was born Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (today, Lviv, Ukraine), the son of Arthur von Mises, a railroad engineer and civil servant, and Adele von Mises, born Adele Landau. Von Mises was still a small boy when his family moved to Vienna.
This scathing address delivered by Dr. Jordan at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board, 16 May 1946 , one year after the end of World War II. He writes: Today it is hard for anyone to forget the want, waste and woe, and the wreckage of the world’s hope of reconstruction, reconversion and peace that have come with
“Labor cannot increase its share at the expense of capital.” Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (Born February 12, 1851; Died 1914) was in the right place at the right time to contribute importantly to the development of Austrian economics. Studying at the University of Vienna, he was twenty years old when Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics appeared in
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.