A mathematician and an economist were asked, “What is the sum of two plus two?” The mathematician immediately answered, “It is four.” The economist, on the other hand, closed all windows and doors and asked quietly, “What do you want it to be?” Just when we think this story is simply another silly economist joke, reality sets in. The latest
As the political season stumbles to a close, we need to remember that the historical relationship between economic policy, economic performance, and political rhetoric can be wildly unpredictable. For example, all these years later, it is worth reconsidering the presidency of Jimmy Carter, from 1977 to 1981. Many of the reforms that took place
Hal Varian, whose mathematical textbook has been the bane of economics graduate students for many years, has now weighed in on a solution to our oil problems: increase the federal tax on gasoline. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Varian says that a stiff, new tax on gas will discourage motorists from driving, which would mean we would use less
Mention immigration to Austrian economists and other free-market economists and you will hear a cacophony of opinions that range from “completely open the borders” to “completely close the borders.” It is hard to imagine a more divisive subject among those with libertarian philosophical and economic bents, and it plays out in the political arena
For anyone who thinks of Murray Rothbard as only an economic theorist or political thinker, these four spectacular volumes are nothing short of shocking. They offer a complete history of the Colonial period of American history through the Revolutionary War, a period lost to students today, who are led to believe American history begins with the US
The word democracy is conspicuously absent in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The framers feared it, and so limited federal power with checks and balances. Yet in a real sense the Founding Fathers did provide democracy, a lot of it, but in the voluntary private sector. They left the vast bulk of the people’s
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.