The Free Market 19, no. 1 (January 2001) According to the dictionary, the word “wanton” means undisciplined or unruly, with connotations of self-indulgent, arrogant recklessness, and a disregard for justice or the rights of others. The word goes back to Middle English, being a combination of the words “wanting” or “wane,” meaning a lack of, and
A review of Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World. The Men who built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869 . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Ambrose is an accomplished military and presidential historian, best known for his books on Dwight D. Eisenhower and the American GI during WWII. He wrote this book on a piece of railroad
Ludwig von Mises was the foremost advocate of the gold standard of his day. Yet, he recognized that gold only became the world’s premier monetary metal because of a botched attempt to establish a bimetallic standard, in which the government tried to fix the value of gold in terms of silver ( Human Action, 3rd revised edition, p. 471 ). Well,
Since 1854, the country has been through thirty-two business cycles. Periods of expansion have averaged about five years, and periods of recession about one and a half years. Moreover, since the 1930s, recessions have been relatively short, averaging less than twelve months. Since it takes some time to say for sure that we are in recession, by the
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.