As I read The Executive Unbound , I found myself in a world turned upside down. I take the following to be not only true, but obviously true: Today and in the recent past, all-but-uncheckable presidents have involved us in unneeded wars, invaded our liberties, and subjected us to economic controls that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to fascism.
In “ Libertarianism vs. Liberty ,” published in HuffPost on April27, Peter Schwartz of the Ayn Rand Institute criticizes libertarians like Ron Paul who support a non-interventionist foreign policy. These evil people do not want to start a war with Iran. How can they fail to see, Schwartz asks, the “incontrovertible fact” of a direct threat to
Today’s is Joe Salerno’s birthday. He is an outstanding Austrian economist and the Academic Vice-President of the Mises Institute. Murray Rothbard said of Joe that he “has done remarkably creative work in the history of economic thought.”He has made major contribution to monetary theory, Austrian business cycle theory, the nature of
Mario Rizzo, a well-known Austrian economist who teaches at NYU, made an important point about Austrian economics in a recent post on Facebook. He said, “If you are an economist and want to be remembered by future generations, then you really should be a Austrian. We pay full homage to our ancestors and do not pretend that we discovered something
Most often the state compels you to do things, not because these things are supposed to be good for you, but because they fulfill the state’s purposes. The state doesn’t take your money to help you. Sometimes, though, the state does pass laws that claim to restrict people for their own good, e.g., laws that forbid use of certain drugs that are
Daniel Hausman is an influential philosopher of economics, and in a recent interview in the New York Times, he has much to say that will be of interest to Austrians. He agrees with Austrians that economists cannot predict particular events: “Scientists (and I include economists) are not fortunetellers.” His reason for holding this view. though,
Today is Lew Rockwell’s birthday, and this is a fitting time to reflect on his significance for Austrian economics and for libertarianism. Lew has been the foremost advocate and promoter of the work of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. He founded the Mises Institute in 1982 in order to bring to the attention of a wide scholarly and popular
Volume 17, No. 4 (Winter 2014) Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames New York: McGraw Hill, 2014, xvii + 249 pages Money is an odd book. Its odd character can be brought out through an analogy. Imagine that someone wrote an eloquent book about price and wage controls. The book showed how attempts to control prices led to economic disaster. Faced with
Burt Blumert, who died six years ago, would have turned eighty-six today. It’s still hard for me to believe that Burt isn’t here anymore. Burt was the person you could always go to if you faced a difficult situation. His insights and good humor made you understand exactly what you needed to do. To get some idea of what Burt was like, I recommend
Joe Salerno, like Ludwig von Mises, is not only a great economist but a great teacher of economics as well. Since 2005, he has been in charge of the Mises Institute Summer Fellows program. In this program, graduate students spend a summer at the Institute. They engage in regular discussions; and, under Joe’s direction, they prepare a research
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.