A recent article from the Guardian joins the growing outcry against free trade. Its central message is that countries adopting “neo-liberal” market reforms, recommended by academic economists, have done worse than those countries that ignored the supposed experts and spurned free trade. Every time I reread the article—with the subtitle “A look at
There are numerous clichés concerning the national (i.e. federal government) debt. In this article I attempt to show the grain of truth (and pile of falsehood) in these typical statements. But before doing so, I will first give a quick primer on government debt and its financing. GOVERNMENT DEBT When the government spends more than it takes in
In response to my last article on government deficits , Stefan Karlsson alerted me to an openly Keynesian analysis at National Review Online. Although Tom Nugent’s surprising piece ran back in 2004, its errors are timeless and hence worth exploding even today. CONFUSING CORRELATION WITH CAUSATION Nugent commits the standard Keynesian fallacy of
It’s not easy being an economist. To get your degree nowadays, you have to first become a (second rate) mathematician. Then you start teaching and half of your students require artificial stimulants during the lecture on price elasticity. Even at social gatherings, the burden follows you: The moment your occupation becomes known, someone
Murray Newton Rothbard (1926 — 1995) was one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. I choose the somewhat vague term thinker because Rothbard’s interests were so diverse that they defy conventional classification. Yes, Rothbard was an economic theorist in the “Austrian” tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. But
For years Paul Craig Roberts has been a leading academic critic of free trade, outsourcing, and “globalization” in general; his latest article, “Bush’s Untrue State of the Union,” issues the direst warnings — and hurls the strongest insults — yet. After criticizing Bush’s foreign policy (an issue where Roberts and I totally agree), Roberts cites
For some time now Mises.org has come out squarely in favor of free trade, and has opposed the new attacks on trade and “globalization” (notably from Paul Craig Roberts ). I myself have written numerous pieces along these lines, and have thus received perhaps hundreds of email comments on the topic. One type of argument is typical anti-capitalist
In the intellectual battle for liberty, sometimes it’s a good idea to skip the latest high-brow attack on capitalism from the Left or Right and instead poke fun at a ridiculous news article. A recent AP story, “Scientists in food fight over soda,” provides a perfect target. The article begins by informing us of new reports in science journals that
The latest trend for making economics more “scientific” is to incorporate results from other disciplines, such as psychology and neuroscience. Now as an Austrian economist, I welcome just about any criticism of the neoclassical mainstream. However, some of the proponents of the newfangled ways often overstep when they criticize “flaws” with basic
It’s tough to be an economist. Not only must you endure years of stultifying lectures and readings, you must also brave the feigned approval of those who had innocently asked, “Oh, a professor? What do you teach?” But beyond this, there is a deeper problem: I can’t help watching certain movies without being distracted by nagging problems that
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.