Mises Wire

“The Civil War was really the watershed,” he wrote Meyer. “Lincoln was America’s first dictator, and almost all the Republican Acts were monstrous.”

Once upon a time, American firms built with the long term in view, and the government did not try to hinder them. Today, thanks to reckless federal government spending, we are living hand-to-mouth, accumulating massive debts, and soon enough will be broke.

An enduring myth is that imports from industrialized western countries have decimated production of goods in developing countries. Economic history tells a much different story.

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk has focused attention on political violence. Ludwig von Mises, not surprisingly, understood that tying morality to politicized state helps create the climate where political violence is prevalent.

During the Middle Ages, taxation was considered to be appropriate only as an extreme measure in times of emergency, and as a last resort. Kings were expected to subsist on revenues from their own private property.

Milton Friedman and the Monetarists believed that fluctuations in the money supply caused the boom-and-bust business cycles. Their solution—keeping money growth slow and steady—would still lead to business cycles.

Murray Rothbard recognized that the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the lifeblood for government intervention. It doesn't need to be “reformed,” but rather should be outright abolished.

Leftists seek to create a new society that supposedly is peaceable. However, they also celebrate violence done against political opponents, something that Murray Rothbard understood as undermining every supposed peaceful goal they claim to be pursuing.

Artificial Intelligence, for all of the fear-mongering taking place, simply is a tool that if applied in a free market setting will make our economy stronger, not weaker.

Governments at all levels play the same game—always threatening to eliminate school buses, police departments, ambulances, garbage collection—whatever can succeed in getting the voters to approve more taxes and spending.