Does cheap money and credit make us richer? Does more money and credit create more stuff, or better stuff? Do they make us happier and more productive? Or do these twin forces actually distort the economy, misallocate resources, and degrade us as people? These are fundamental questions in an age of monetary hedonism. It is time we began to ask and
The value of time, i.e., time preference or the higher valuation of want-satisfaction in nearer periods of the future as against that in remoter periods, is an essential element in human action. It determines every choice and every action. There is no man for whom the difference between sooner and later does not count. The time element is
Jeff Deist : Alex Epstein is our special guest this week. He runs the Center for Industrial Progress, was formerly at the Ayn Rand Institute, and has a background in philosophy. He wrote a famous book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels , and followed that up with a new book called Fossil Future . Alex, let me say this book is incredible. Thank
David French, maybe National Review ’s most reliably wrong scribe, issued this gem in response to the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s residence in Florida: Imagine thinking federal police agents and lawyers will be “held accountable,” or that presidents are not above the law! Is this an afterschool special? “Let’s wait and see, folks, before we judge
Language is the perfect instrument of empire . —Antonio de Nebrija, bishop of Ávila, 1492 The bishop was correct, in his time and ours. Spain proceeded to become the most powerful empire in the world over the following century, spreading her mother tongue across the Americas—just as the Roman army had imposed Latin across its sweep and just as the
[The following is excerpted from remarks made at the Arizona Biltmore hotel this past weekend during the 2022 Mises Institute Supporters Summit] The architect Frank Lloyd Wright played an important role in the design of this beautiful desert resort. I’m sure I’m not the only person here tonight who was introduced to his work through reading Ayn
[Excerpted from remarks delivered at the Free Private Cities “Liberty in our Lifetime” Conference in Prague on 22 October, 2022] At this conference and others like it, dealing with alternative legal and monetary structures, I’ve noticed in recent years a strong bias in favor of action over argument, for building over persuading, for practice over
Dear Friend, In the midst of this busy Christmas season, I want to make sure you received our year-end letter from Lew Rockwell. If you already responded, thank you! But if not, will you take a minute today to make your most generous contribution and support the Mises Institute ? We are all thankful to have the political season of 2022 over, but
Introduction: Division, friction and polarization have been on the rise in the West for at least a decade, but the escalation we saw during the “covid years” was especially worrying. Over the last year, this “worry” has become a truly pressing concern, even a real emergency one might argue, as inflationary pressures and an actual war were added to
[This talk was delivered on Friday, September 2, 2022, to a student workshop at the Ron Paul Institute conference in northern Virginia.] The remarks I’ve prepared today relate to your personal and professional development, which are of course closely interrelated. This is not to be confused with “self-help,” a somewhat disreputable genre whose
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.