Ever since Black, or Meltdown, Monday October 19th, the public has been deluged with irrelevant and contradictory explanations and advice from politicians, economists, financiers, and assorted pundits. Let’s try to sort out and rebut some of the nonsense about the nature, causes, and remedies for the crash. Myth One It was not a crash, but a
Lionel Robbins’s The Great Depression (Macmillan, 1934) is one of the great economic works of our time. Its greatness lies not so much in originality of economic thought, as in the application of the best economic thought to the explanation of the cataclysmic phenomena of the Great Depression. This is unquestionably the best work published on the
If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire—to leave the economy alone. Only if there is no interference, direct or threatened, with prices, wage rates, and business liquidation will the necessary adjustment proceed with smooth dispatch. Any propping up of shaky positions postpones
[This essay was originally published as a minibook by the Constitutional Alliance of Lansing, Michigan, 1969.] We live in a world of euphemism. Undertakers have become “morticians,” press agents are now “public relations counselors” and janitors have all been transformed into “superintendents.” In every walk of life, plain facts have been wrapped
The student of economics is invariably taught a certain mythology about the history of the study of business cycles. That mythology holds (a) that before 1913, nobody realized that there are cycles of prosperity and depression in the economy—instead, everyone thought only of isolated crises or panics, and (b) that this all changed with the advent
Study of business cycles must be based upon a satisfactory cycle theory. Gazing at sheaves of statistics without “pre-judgment” 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 attempted integration, is the
[First published in Inquiry , November 12, 1979.] A half-century ago, America — and then the world — was rocked by a mighty stock-market crash that soon turned into the steepest and longest-lasting depression of all time. It was not only the sharpness and depth of the depression that stunned the world and changed the face of modern history: it was
[Excerpted from America’s Great Depression , chapter 1 “The Positive Theory of the Cycle,” section “The Explanation: Boom and Depression,” pages 9–14 .] In the purely free and unhampered market, there will be no cluster of errors, since trained entrepreneurs will not all make errors at the same time. The “boom-bust” cycle is generated by monetary
[Adapted from Man, Economy and State with Power and Market , pp. 851–55.] In the real world, there will be continual changes in the pattern of economic activity, changes resulting from shifts in the tastes and demands of consumers, in resources available, technological knowledge, etc. That prices and outputs fluctuate, therefore, is to be
Murray Rothbard, in a complete revision of the standard account, traces inflations, banking panics, and money meltdowns from the Colonial Period through the mid-twentieth century to show how the American government’s systematic war on sound money is the hidden force behind nearly all major economic calamities in American history. This audio
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.