Study of business cycles must be based upon a satisfactory cycle theory. Gazing at sheaves of statistics without “pre-judgment” is futile. A cycle takes place in the economic world, and therefore a usable cycle theory must be integrated with general economic theory. And yet, remarkably, such integration, even attempted integration, is the
[This is Murray Rothbard’s introduction to Frank A. Fetter’s Capital, Interest, and Rent .] Frank Albert Fetter (1863–1949) was the leader in the United States of the early Austrian school of economics. Born in rural Indiana, Fetter was graduated from the Indiana University in 1891. After earning a master’s degree at Cornell University, Fetter
The first libertarian intellectual was Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism. Little is known about his life, but apparently he was a personal acquaintance of Confucius in the late sixth century BC and like the latter came from the state of Sung and was descended from the lower aristocracy of the Yin dynasty. Unlike the notable apologist for the rule of
The Free Market is a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents. These two individuals (or agents) exchange two economic goods, either tangible commodities or nontangible services. Thus, when I buy a
(This is an excerpt from Chapter 16 of An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought , Vol. I and II , Edward Elgar, 1995; Mises Institute 2006. Here is his source page ) Adam Smith (1723-90) is a mystery in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. The mystery is the enormous and unprecedented gap between Smith’s exalted reputation and the
[ Libertarian Analysis 1, no. 1. (Winter 1970): 14–28] Libertarians tend to fall into two opposing errors on the American past: the familiar “Golden Age” view of the right-wing that everything was blissful in America until some moment of precipitous decline (often dated 1933); and the deeply pessimistic minority view that rejects the American past
As the subtitle declares, this work is an overall history of economic thought from a frankly “Austrian” standpoint: that is, from the point of view of an adherent of the “Austrian School” of economics. This is the only such work by a modern Austrian; indeed, only a few monographs in specialized areas of the history of thought have been published
1.0 Introduction 1.1 The Natural Law 1.2 The Politics of the Polis 1.3 The First “Economist”: Hesiod and the Problem of Scarcity 1.4 The Pre-Socratics 1.5 Plato’s Right-wing Collectivist Utopia 1.6 Xenophon on Household Management 1.7 Aristotle: Private Property and Money 1.8 Aristotle: Exchange and Value 1.9 The Collapse After Aristotle 1.10
Historians have long debated the precise causes of the American Revolution: Were they constitutional, economic, political, or ideological? We now realize that, being libertarians, the revolutionaries saw no conflict between moral and political rights on the one hand and economic freedom on the other. On the contrary, they perceived civil and moral
Was Keynes, as Hayek maintained, a “brilliant scholar”? “Scholar” hardly, since Keynes was abysmally read in the economics literature: he was more of a buccaneer, taking a little bit of knowledge and using it to inflict his personality and fallacious ideas upon the world, with a drive continually fueled by an arrogance bordering on egomania. But
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.