The philosopher Terrance Tomkow (1950-2024) passed away last Friday night, January 12, 2024. He was best known as a philosopher of language and made important contributions to metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the free will problem. For most readers of the Mises page, though, what will probably be of most interest are his posts about
Mr. Mark Lautman has given me permission to share the following letter: When I started reading Rothbard’s book, I gave the three-line summary to my wife. “It’s a book written by Murray Rothbard in the 1950s about libertarian economics. It’s published by the Mises Institute. Rothbard was a disciple of an Austrian economist Mises.” “Mises?” she
The Free Society . By Laurence M. Vance. Vance Publications, 2018. Xii + 468 pages. Laurence Vance is best known for his work as a specialist on the King James translation of the Bible, but he is also an outstanding writer on libertarian issues. In The Free Society , he has collected a large number of his articles for the period 2005-2017, almost
Herbert Aptheker: Studies in Willful Blindness . By Anthony Flood. Independently published, 2019. I +93 pages. Anthony Flood tells that in “the early 1970s, I was an acolyte of Herbert Aptheker(1915-2003). Known mainly for his writings on African-American history he was also, during the Cold War and even after, a theoretician of the Communist
The economist Alex Tabarrok in a post today criticizes what he calls ”identity economics”. Tabarrok says: “Identity economics is bad economics”. By “identity economics,” he means a theory that jumps from an accounting identity to a claim about causation. Keynesian economics is a prime example of this fallacy, as Tabarrok’s quotation from Nick Rowe
Libertarianism . By Eric Mack. Polity Press, 2018. Vi + 167 pages. + online bonus chapter http://politybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Mack-Libertarian-FINAL-Online-Chapter-pdf.pdf Eric Mack, for many years a philosophy professor at Tulane University, has a well-deserved reputation as a critic of philosophical arguments, and that talent is
Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy . Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew, Eds. University of Pittsburgh Press. Xi + 460 pages. This excellent book mirrors in its choice of contributors the odd relationship between Ayn Rand and libertarianism. On the one hand, her own proposals for the political
Political Capitalism: How Economic and Political Power is Made and Maintained . By Randall G. Holcombe. Cambridge University Press, 2018. X + 294 pages. Randall Holcombe is best known as an economist for his work in public choice, but in this impressive new book, he adds a historical dimension to public choice by combining it with “elite theory.”
The distinguished entrepreneur Robert Luddy, a friend and benefactor for many years of the Mises Institute, has extended his innovations in education from elementary and high schools to universities. His Thales Academy has had great success, and he now proposes a Thales College as well. This college will not seek accreditation, in that way cutting
Powerline reports the results of a survey of ideological bias in philosophy. “T he more right-leaning the participant, the more hostility they reported personally experiencing from colleagues, and, overall, the more left-leaning the participant, the less hostility they reported personally experiencing.” The hostility was no mere matter of dislike
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.