Sohrab Ahmari has written a passionate indictment of the free market. The core of his indictment is expressed in one of the book’s epigraphs. It is from the Vulgate, and in translation reads: “Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the
Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War by Branko Milanovic Harvard Univerity Press, 2023; 359 pp. Branko Milanovic’s Visions of Inequality contains one of the most misleading statements I have ever encountered by an author about the contents of his own book. Milanovic, an eminent economist who teaches at the
Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality by Angus Deaton Princeton University Press, 2023; xiii + 273 pp. Economics in America disappointed me, but I have only myself to blame. As you would expect from a Nobel laureate, Angus Deaton is very smart and erudite, but what you might not expect is that he is funny as
The Virtue of Nationalism Yoram Hazony Basic Books, 2018 285 + vii pages Yoram Hazony is a thinker of great originality, and in The Virtue of Nationalism , he enables us to see nationalism in a new way. He is not a libertarian, but his way of looking at nationalism can be of great value to libertarians in understanding how our views should be
Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse Timothy P. Carney Harper Collins, 2019 xiv + 348 pages Timothy Carney, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute and editor at the Washington Examiner , has a message of vital importance for supporters of the free market. This message is not, though, the only theme of his
Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics Robert Skidelsky Yale University Press, 2018 xiv + 402 pages The title of Murray Rothbard’s Power and Market provides a useful entry to understanding Robert Skidelsky’s long and learned book. Rothbard drew a contrast between peaceful cooperation through the free market and State coercion.
JEFF DEIST: Does economics need philosophy? The idea of a school of economics having a philosophical underpinning might strike some people as odd. Why should economists care about philosophy at all? DAVID GORDON: Well, that’s a very good question. You see, what Mises held was that economics has a distinct method or way of proceeding, and he felt
Human Scale Revisited: A New Look at the Classic Case for a Decentralist Future Kirkpatrick Sale Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017 411 pages What attitude should supporters of the free market take toward decentralization? Should libertarians support the movement for Catalonian autonomy, for example, even if leaders of that movement are unfriendly
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life Nassim Nicholas Taleb Random House, 2018 To review Skin in the Game is a risky undertaking. The author has little use for book reviewers who, he tells us, “are bad middlemen. Book reviews are judged according to how plausible and well-written they are; never in how they map the book (unless of
Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism by Quinn Slobodian Harvard University Press, 2018 x+381 pages Quinn Slobodian, a historian at Wellesley College, tells us that Globalists “is a long-simmering product of the Seattle protests against the World Trade organization in 1999. I was part of a generation that ... became
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.