The Failure of the ‘New Economics’ thoroughly demolished the Keynesian system. Unfortunately, this “economic demolition” as Rothbard called it (Hazlitt 2007 [1959], xvi), went ignored by the mainstream despite it carrying implications that would have prevented the decline in theoretical vigor of mainstream economics that was Keynesianism.
According to behavioral economics (BE), emotions play an important role in an individual’s decision-making process. For example, if consumers become more optimistic regarding the future, then this is going to send a message to businesses regarding investment decisions. According to BE followers, whether consumers are generally patient or impatient
One of the first laws of economics—in fact, the condition that makes economics possible and necessary—is scarcity. On page one of Basic Economics , Thomas Sowell wrote, “Without scarcity, there is no need to economize—and therefore no economics.” While defining scarcity and its critical role in economics, I like to ask my students in a Christian
To the Chinese reader: It is safe to say that economics suffers at least as many fallacies and misunderstandings as any other field of study. Had physics suffered the same level of issues, we would not have seen much—if any—of the progress that we have made over the past centuries. Yet, economics—the queen of the social sciences—keeps being
Many years ago, in “The Communist Road to Self-Enslavement” (included in After the Open Society , a collection of Karl Popper’s papers edited by Jeremy Shearmur), I discovered the following sentence: “Like myself, [Ludwig von Mises] appreciated that there was some common ground, and he knew that I had accepted his most fundamental theorems and
I had the good fortune of attending the Rothbard Graduate Seminar (RGS) twice in succession, during the summers of 2020 and 2021. By that time, I was already quite familiar with the ideas of the Austrian School thanks to the many podcasts and recorded Mises University lectures, among much more, the Mises Institute has made freely available online.
[Excerpted from Chapter 17 of Human Action .] The services money renders are conditioned by the height of its purchasing power. Nobody wants to have in his cash holding a definite number of pieces of money or a definite weight of money; he wants to keep a cash holding of a definite amount of purchasing power. As the operation of the market
[This speech was delivered at the Mises Institute on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Human Action in 1999. This year, May 16-18, join Dr. Joseph T. Salerno, Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Dr. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Dr. Mark Thornton, and more for a conference in honor of the 75th anniversary of Human Action at our campus in Auburn. Space is
May 16–18, 2024: Join Dr. Joseph T. Salerno, Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Dr. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Dr. Mark Thornton, and more for a conference in honor of the 75th anniversary of Human Action at our campus in Auburn. Space is limited. Register here . There are many good reasons why those who aspire to learn and practice sound economics should read
There is little doubt that John Mearsheimer is one of the most prominent, and controversial, thinkers in the field of international relations alive today. His most important work, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2014, New York: Norton), continues to be the de facto handbook to the theory of offensive realism and this theoretical lens has
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.