There are basically only two ways in which economic life can be organized. The first is by the voluntary choice of families and individuals and by voluntary cooperation. This arrangement has come to be known as the free market. The other is by the orders of a dictator. This is a command economy. In its more extreme form, when an organized state
The other day I met a friend who is a large stockholder in General Motors, and he told me a story. A few weeks before, his son had used somewhat excessive strength on the mixing valve in his bathroom and broke the handle off. The local plumber couldn’t repair it, so he ordered and installed a new valve. The valve turned out to cost $22.50. The
Throughout history, until about the middle of the 18th century, mass poverty was nearly everywhere the normal condition of man. Then capital accumulation and a series of major inventions ushered in the Industrial Revolution. In spite of occasional setbacks, economic progress became accelerative. Today, in the United States, in Canada, in nearly
Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics, or medicine—the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group
Recognizing the calamitous erosion of incentives that would be brought about by a straight guaranteed-income plan, some reformers have advocated what they call a “negative income tax.” This proposal was put forward by the prominent economist, Professor Milton Friedman, of the University of Chicago, in his book Capitalism and Freedom , which
[Chapter 11 of Economics in One Lesson .] A mere recital of the economic policies of governments all over the world is calculated to cause any serious student of economics to throw up his hands in despair. What possible point can there be, he is likely to ask, in discussing refinements and advances in economic theory, when popular thought and the
[ On this day in 1949, Yale University Press published the first edition of Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action. The following is from Hazlitt’s “ Two Masterpieces by Mises .” ] There has just been published by the Yale University Press a book that is destined to become a landmark in the progress of economics. Its title is Human Action , and its author
[ Chapter One of The Conquest of Poverty . ] The history of poverty is almost the history of mankind. The ancient writers have left us few specific accounts of it. They took it for granted. Poverty was the normal lot.The ancient world of Greece and Rome, as modern historians reconstruct it, was a world where houses had no chimneys, and rooms,
[ Chapter Three of The Conquest of Poverty .] Any study of poverty should logically begin with a definition of the problem we are trying to solve. Precisely what is poverty? Of the thousands of books and articles on the subject that have appeared over the last two centuries, it is astonishing how few have troubled to ask this question. Their
[Chapter 7 from The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt , edited by Hans F. Sennholz (Irvington-on-Husdon, NY: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1993).] If capitalism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it — and its discovery would be rightly regarded as one of the great triumphs of the human mind. But as “capitalism” is merely a name for
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.