The Free Market 14, no. 1 (January 1996) The Gold Standard Act of 1890, which officially established the gold standard in America, was the culmination of a twenty-year battle between inflationists, who favored unlimited government purchase of silver (the “Free Silver” movement), and the advocates of sound money based on the gold standard. The
The Free Market 15, no. 2 (February 1997) If members of the congressional classes of 1994 and 1996 are serious about curbing government, they should rally around Ron Paul, the newly elected congressman from Texas’s 14th district. For Ron, a longtime friend of the Mises Institute, is the outstanding political opponent of the main engine of
The Free Market 16, no. 12 (December 1998) Speaking before a Congressional committee, Alan Greenspan stepped back from his discussion of the newest international currency crisis to reflect on the gold standard of the last century. He noted that bad judgments and distortions in price had a way of working themselves out very quickly. Interest
The Free Market 2, no. 6 (Winter 1984) Capitol Hill Gold Standard Conference A Special Report to Institute Members The Ludwig von Mises Institute’s premier conference was held in Washington, D.C., on November 16–17, 1983. “The Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective” was the first event of its kind. Not only was it the first academic conference
The Free Market 4, no. 11 (November 1986) September 1986 is an historic month in the history of United States monetary policy. For it is the first month in over fifty years—thanks to the heroic leadership of Ron Paul during his four terms in Congress—that the United States Treasury has minted a genuine gold coin. Gold coins were the standard
The Free Market 5, no. 4 (April 1987) Not all hard-money supporters favor the gold-coin standard or any Treasury minting of gold coins. A few “purists” charge those of us who advocate a gold standard with being “gold socialists” because the Treasury would, at least initially, be minting the gold coins. Why not, they say, simply start minting
The Free Market 26, no. 8 (September 2008) You are uptown in a shopping district of a small community, and you pass by the meat shop, the wine shop, the coffee shop, two churches side by side, a coin shop, an antique store . . . and hold it right there. A coin shop? This is irresistible, because, as implausible as this may sound, all political
The Free Market 24, no. 2 (February 2004) There is a fly in the ointment of economic recovery: a dollar that just won’t seem to stop its fall. The impression that this trend portends something ominous is bolstered by the inverse relationship of the dollar’s value on international exchange and the price of gold. As the dollar has fallen in the
The Free Market 24, no. 7 (July 2004) [Editorial Note: Price inflation now having reared its head in many sectors, despite constant downward pressure on prices from innovation and imports, and the business cycle continuing to plague the world economy, it is time to revisit a neglected classic from Murray Rothbard, an excerpt from a long study that
The Free Market 24, no. 9 (September 2004) In a growing economy with sound money, the purchasing power of your money should and would be always on the rise. Your dollar would buy more this year than last year, not only in terms of quality improvements but also in terms of price. This is another way of saying that prices would constantly fall 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.