Our guest is Dr. Per Bylund of Oklahoma State University, who joins Jeff Deist to dispel some of the myths surrounding artificial intelligence and mass data collection. AI is just the next evolution of smart software, Bylund argues, and should be celebrated like all technology as higher order capital goods that increase productivity and wealth.
Per Bylund explains the many contributions of Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832), a precursor to the Austrian School of economics. Today, Say is most well known for his “law of markets” which is now referred to simply as “Say’s Law.” Often misstated as “supply creates its own demand,” the law is that we produce and supply to the market in order that we
Originally Published September 20, 2011. What is a firm? This may not seem like a question in lack of an answer. In the United States, as in most other countries, it is a registered, regulated entity acting legally as a person. But economically, the legal definition is irrelevant: the economic function of the “firm” is not its legal status — if it
The trade policies of both the USA and the EU seem to be based on the contradictory philosophy that unrestricted trade is beneficial within its borders, even if across internal borders, but not with parties outside those borders. But this makes no sense. From the point of view of trade, the voluntary exchange of goods, why are the borders between
There is severe confusion about the meaning of economic growth. Many seem to mistakenly think that it has to do with GDP or producing stuff. It does not. Economic growth means that an economy’s ability to satisfy people’s wants, whatever they are--that is, to produce wellbeing -- increases. GDP is a rather terrible way of capturing this using
There’s a whole lot of buzz about the sharing economy. Many seem to think it is something new, with some calling for a ‘new economics’ to explain it while others deride the ‘gig economy’ as a higher level of exploitation, inequality, and poverty. Neither is a good analysis. First things first: the sharing economy was facilitated by advances in
Automation seems to be a never-ending source of fear-mongering. Judging from the commentary, robots will “replace us” and cause large-scale unemployment. With the entry of artificial intelligence (AI), and robots that make robots, the value of human beings as productive forces in the economy is simply zero. People then become value-less consumers,
The term capitalism is highly confusing. The definition is clear enough: the private ownership of the means of production (capital). But the implications are very different depending on one’s political or economic perspective. Both are right and wrong. Let’s take a look at them. Politically speaking, private ownership of the means of production
The world’s oldest central bank, the Bank of Sweden (or Sveriges Riksbank), today celebrates its 350 th anniversary by organizing a conference on the theme “The role of central banks then, now, and in the future.” While the bank is probably best known for sponsoring the faux Nobel Prize in economics (it’s not one of the prizes in Alfred Nobel’s
Here’s a very nice video/animation of Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression , by a group calling themselves EconClips .
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.