[ Full issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 20, no. 4 (2017)] Anti-Piketty: Capital for the 21st Century Edited by Jean-Philippe Delsol, Nicholas Lecaussin, and Emmanuel Martin Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2017, xxvii + 272 pp. When Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century was published in 2014 (the French edition had
Socialism: A Logical Introduction Scott R. Sehon Oxford University Press, 2024; 268 pp. This is a better book than I expected it to be, but it is not without its problems. Scott Sehon, a philosophy professor at Bowdoin College, is strongly inclined to believe that socialism is better than capitalism, but in the book, his main aim is to set forward
Anti-Piketty: Capital for the 21st Century , Jean-Philippe Delsol, Nicolas Lecaussin, and Emmanuel Martin, eds. Cato Institute, 2017 When Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century was published in 2015, it suffered an unexpected fate for a treatise of 700 pages, filled with statistics and equations. It became a bestseller. Proclaimed a
People are unequal in abilities and circumstances, and because of this, attempts to make them equal by force will inevitably violate their rights to live in freedom. If people have rights, unequal outcomes will result and trying to impose equality will violate their rights. It is as simple as that. Murray Rothbard in Egalitarianism as a Revolt
[ Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide. By Jonathan Rodden. Basic Books, 2019. 313 pages.] Jonathan Rodden is unhappy. In American elections, Democrats often receive a larger number of votes than their Republican rivals, but they nevertheless frequently fail to win elections. “In most democracies, the path to
Todd McGowan, a professor of film studies at the University of Vermont, has done something remarkable. In his just published Emancipation After Hegel , he writes clearly and forcefully about Hegel, a notoriously difficult philosopher. People often view Hegel as an enemy of freedom, but McGowan says the critics have it all wrong. Hegel, far from
The British philosopher Derek Parfit, who died in 2017, was by no means a libertarian. So far as I know, his political views were conventionally leftist. But he destroys egalitarianism with his levelling down objection . If you say that equality of wealth or income is morally required, aren’t you committed to the following strange consequence? A
Prosperity and Liberty: What Venezuela Needs Rafael Acevedo, ed. Miami: Econintech, 2019 xvii + 153 pp. Abstract: Prosperity and Liberty: What Venezuela Needs is a compilation of essays gathered together by distinguished Venezuelan economist Rafael Acevedo. Venezuela has suffered from shortages of essential consumer goods, and a high inflation
Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way through the Unfree World Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2019 192 pp. David Gordon (dgordon@mises.org) is a senior fellow at the Mises Institute. Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell are well-known free market economists, and they do not look with favor on a
Limitarianism: The Case against Extreme Wealth by Ingrid RobeynsAstra House, 2022; 301 pp. Some people have vastly more income and wealth than others, and this situation greatly disturbs Ingrid Robeyns, who teaches ethics at Utrecht University. She does not want to replace the market economy with central planning, but no one should be
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.