The presidential election of 1896 was a great national referendum on the gold standard. The Democratic Party had been captured, at its 1896 convention, by the Populist, ultra-inflationist, anti-gold forces, headed by William Jennings Bryan. The older Democrats, who had been fiercely devoted to hard money and the gold standard, either stayed home
[ America’s Great Depression (1963)] Study of business cycles must be based upon a satisfactory cycle theory. Gazing at sheaves of statistics without “prejudgment” is futile. A cycle takes place in the economic world, and therefore a usable cycle theory must be integrated with general economic theory. And yet, remarkably, such integration, even
[From chapter 23 of The Case Against the Fed .] Having examined the nature of fractional reserve and of central banking, and having seen how the questionable blessings of Central Banking were fastened upon America, it is time to see precisely how the Fed, as presently constituted, carries out its systemic inflation and its control of the American
[ Excerpted from The Case Against The Fed .] By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee
[This article is featured in chapter 78 of Making Economic Sense by Murray Rothbard and originally appeared in the March, 1991 edition of The Free Market. ] There has been a veritable revolution in the attitude of the nation’s economists, as well as the public, toward our banking system. Ever — since 1933, it was a stern dogma a virtual article of
[ The Case Against the Fed , Chapter 8, “Problems for the Fractional-Reserve Banker: Insolvency.” (Slightly edited for publication as a separate article.)] The fractional-reserve banker, even if he violates his contract, cannot be treated as an embezzler and a criminal; but the banker must still face the lesser, but still unwelcome fact of
It has been interesting to read reactions to the recent speech ( Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here ) given by Fed Governor Ben S. Bernanke before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C., on November 21, 2002. Most commentators have focused, with merit, on Bernanke’s alarmingly sanguine approach to monetary inflation as a
[Book Review: Ethics of Money Production . By Jörg Guido Hülsmann. Ludwig von Mises Institute (2008). 280 pages.] Not long ago, the lecture topic in my undergraduate course on corporate finance was ratio analysis. We were using the financial statements of a publicly traded company that day, so I began the class by demonstrating how students
It may still be too early to pen the postmortem on the New Economy. The final chapters on that episode are still being written. Nonetheless, Leon Levy’s discursive memoir, The Mind of Wall Street, is a first cut, perhaps inadvertently so, at disentangling some of the threads that helped create the great bull market of recent vintage. Levy is a
The consultation of oracles, a practice long thought dead, continues today in many forms, perhaps in a more subtle and less institutionalized than during antiquity, but powerfully nonetheless. In Michael Wood’s new book, The Road to Delphi, he explores this “extended metaphorical afterlife of oracles”. Wood draws primarily from history and
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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.