COVID Ethics: It’s Immoral to Confine Innocent People Who Might Be a Threat
A few weeks ago I presented a libertarian take on the ethics of the lockdown. Following Murray Rothbard in his Ethics of Liberty, I argued that the government has no right …
Mises Wire
Why Didn’t the 1958 and 1918 Pandemics Destroy the Economy? Hint: It’s the Lockdowns
The 1958 pandemic killed twice as many people as COVID-19 has so far. Yet, the economy in 2020 has collapsed far worse than either in 1958 or the far worse …
Journal of Libertarian Studies 4, no. 1 (Winter 1980)
Boom and Bust: The Political Economy of Economic Disorderby Richard E. Wagner Libertarians and the Authoritarian Personalityby J. J. Ray Specialization and the Division of Labor in the Social …
The Fed Is Doing “Whatever It Takes” to Prop Up the Economy. That’s a Very Bad Thing.
No sooner had the COVID-19 recession hit the US economy—with its mandatory business and school closures, travel bans, shelter-in-place orders, and a massive drop in commercial activity—than politicians, academics, journalists, …
The Big Reason Mises Rejected Marx’s Dialectical Materialism
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Most people have never heard of dialectical materialism. The term looks so obtuse that you’d be forgiven for thinking that …
The Folly of “Ask What You Can Do for Your Country”
Recently, I was reminded of John F. Kennedy’s most famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” when I …
Do Lockdowns Work? Mounting Evidence Says No
Most of the world’s regimes enthusiastically destroyed their economies and consigned millions to destitution (and a rising tide of resulting health problems) in pursuit of a trendy and unproven theory. …
The Shutdown May Soon Collapse in Pennsylvania Thanks to Local Resistance
With such chaos, confusion, and incompetence playing out, it is little wonder that more and more Pennsylvanians are refusing to obey lockdown decrees. This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored …
Central Banks Are Destroying What Was Left of Free Markets
President Reagan memorably said that the nine words you don’t want to hear are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Governments in all the major jurisdictions are …
Why Official Inflation Measures Don’t Work
In theory, it is possible to adjust inflation measures to account for the many constant changes in prices resulting from changing demand, quality, and innovations. But it’s essentially impossible to …