How School Districts Put Politics Before Children
Many people wary of government power rightly criticize public schools for being more indoctrination than education. When the institution is fully dependent on the state for support, why would any …
Mises Wire
Currency Debasement and Social Collapse
Knowledge of the effects of government interference with market prices makes us comprehend the economic causes of a momentous historical event, the decline of ancient civilization. It may be left …
Six Graphs Showing Just How Much the Government Has Grown
Federal spending and federal taxation in the United States set new records in 2019. And the federal budget deficit swelled to more than a trillion dollars. Europe is in the …
The Power of Self-Ownership
As every reader of Murray Rothbard knows, the principle of self-ownership stands at the basis of libertarian thought. Each person is the owner of his or her own body. If …
The Missing Empirical Support for Intellectual Property
The most common justification for legal protections of intellectual property (for example, patent and copyright) is that we need them to promote innovation. This is an empirical claim. I suspect, …
How Central Banks Fund Our Age of Endless War
[This talk was delivered at the Mises Circle in New York City on September 14, 2012.] The 20th century was the century of total war. Limitations on the scope …
Chilean Protesters Claim Inequality Made then Do It
A car stops its march in front of the red light. At the wheel, a 40-year-old lawyer looks at her cell phone to check the time. She is hoping to …
What Would Mises Think about the West Today?
[The following is an excerpt from Jeff Deist’s talk at the Mises Institute’s recent summit in Los Angeles] Introduction Those of us who read and enjoy Mises, and he wrote …
The Limits of Social Spending as a Driver of Economic Equality
In the history of the development of the concept of equality, it has traditionally been understood as equality of individual rights before the law. Great minds from antiquity to modernity …
Are Structural Fluctuations Natural or Policy-Induced? Analyzing Mises’s and Schumpeter’s Contributions to Business Cycle Theory
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 22, no. 2 (Summer 2019) full issue. ABSTRACT: The 2007/8 financial crisis and economic recessions, much like the Great Depression of 1929, stimulated an increased …