Mises Wire

As we prepare for 2021, here is a collection of Dr. Gordon's book reviews from the past year. Each article features his piercing Rothbardian-insight into some of the most important new books of 2020.

In January 1921, thirty-five hundred people packed the Lexington Theater in midtown Manhattan to hear a debate of socialism. Ludwig von Mises in Vienna later called the debate "instructive."

The French economist Jacques Rueff was the foremost opponent in the twentieth century of the gold exchange standard.  He well described how the Bretton Woods enabled the US government to engage in seemingly endless deficit spending. 

For people who remain mystified as to how populists like Donald Trump get elected, they need not look much further than this. 

In his new book, conservative author R.R. Reno thinks that openness is not a strong enough principle for a society to rally behind. Unfortunately, his answer is to get behind the state.

Corporate cost cutting sets the stage for future gains in profitability and productivity, and there is no resulting "paradox of thrift" requiring easy money policies to "fix" the problem. 

Everything we do is thanks to donors like you, not billionaires, big foundations, or government grants. We wish you peace and prosperity in 2021.

Let us begin with what CBDCs definitely are not: they are not a new kind of cryptocurrency akin to bitcoin.

No matter how bleak the economy may be, the Keynesians are likely to say, “It would have been worse without us.” 

The aims of the WEF are not to plan every aspect of production and thus to direct all individual activity. Rather, the goal is to limit the possibilities for individual activity—by dint of squeezing out industries and producers within industries from the economy.