Originally published by American Thinker. In the view of most economic illiterates, speculators do not bake bread; they do not supply medicines; they are AWOL when it comes to working on the shop floor; they don’t teach math or the cello. They are thus parasites on others who do supply such needed everyday goods and services. Here’s a real-life
In addition to being a libertarian in political philosophy, I am also a member of the Austrian school of economics. Austrian economics has nothing to do with the economy of that European country. It is so named because its founding fathers all emanated from that part of the world. They include such European scholars as Carl Menger, Eugen von
[ Editor’s Note: In this selection from “ Is the Virus of International Macroeconomic Interventionism Infectious? An ABCT Analysis “ in the newest issue of Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, the authors analyze how a commodity-money-based economy would be effected by neighboring economies still using fiat money. The authors note that the
Walter Block – The Errors of Friedman, Coase & Buchanan [Australian Mises Seminar 2012] . Here I speak at Mises University 2012. My lecture is about Friedman’s positive externalities’ argument of public schools, his broken window fallacy concerning WWII, the tradable emission rights, Friedman’s road socialism. I talk about the flexible exchange
Here I go over the moderate view of libertarianism with Henrik Palmgren from Red Ice Creations. I explain why the welfare state creates poverty by creating non-intact families and I go over how the government subsidizing unemployment gives incentives for unemployment that would otherwise not be there in a libertarian world. Click here to listen
The minimum wage on its face is an unemployment law, not an employment law. It does not compel anyone to hire anyone else. It only stipulates who CANNOT legally be employed: no one may be hired for less than the amount stipulated by law. If the minimum wage law is set at $10 per hour, the law does not require any employer to hire any employee at
Mises’s Vienna 2.0: This map and the guide below have been compiled by Mises University graduates Andrew Finnerty and Robert Müürsepp, who were able to meet up in Vienna to explore the places important to the scholars of the Austrian school. University of Vienna : It should be noted that Hans Kelsen has a bust just to the right as you’re looking
Here I speak to Chris Spangle and Dan Peffers from the We Are Libertarians Show. I go over Nevada and its’ current laws on prostitution. I speak about free market environmentalism and the history of government laws actually permitting trespassing by way of pollution. I also make a clear distinction between the free market and contracting out. Then
Here is a letter I received about the Regression theorem: I’ve been thinking through this for a few days and wondered if you had any insight -- is the Regression Theorem a praxeological statement, or is it a heuristic device? If it is a praxeological statement, then it must be true, and we can deduce *a priori* truths from it on that basis (e.g.,
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.