Free Markets

Ryan McMaken joins the show to tackle the toughest and most controversial chapters ofThe Ethics of Liberty—abortion, the rights of children, defamation, and all the "what-ifs" contained in lifeboat situations.

"When we call a capitalist society a consumers’ democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers’ ballot, held daily in the marketplace."

That gold was used as money in the past is merely a historical fact. But the fact that gold was a form of private money, and thus not easily manipulated for government schemes, made it a target of countless intellectual and governmental assaults. 

Practically everyone wants material prosperity. For this reason, Mises argued, the marketplace is the one place where humanity can come within reach of rational agreement.

The gold standard disappeared because governments destroyed it. Here's how it happened. Private-sector money is always an enemy of the state.

Autoethnographies place the self within a social, historical context. In this one, Michael Rectenwald approaches the free market from the standpoint of his own experience.

It is absurd to say we wish to do away with religion, education, property, labor, and the arts simply because we oppose government subsidies. Rather, we merely oppose stealing from one group of citizens and handing over their wealth to others.

The socialists cannot help admitting that capitalism has the tendency to improve the material conditions of mankind. But, they say, it has diverted men from the higher and nobler pursuits.

One day, the Institute publishes an article criticizing Republicans. The Left cheers, but the Rights denounces us. The next day we criticize Democrats and the Right cheers while the Left is enraged. Yet our position is always consistently against the state. 

The salient fact, and one which most writers fail to stress, is that, insofar as the working people then had a "choice of alternative benefits," they chose the conditions which the reformers condemned.