In his important book The Failure of American Conservatism (2023), the political theorist and philosopher Claes G. Ryn offers some criticisms of libertarianism and free-market capitalism, and in this week’s column, I’d like to examine these. Ryn is not an opponent of all forms of the free market, but he fears an extreme version of it can be
The philosopher Terrance Tomkow (1950-2024) passed away last Friday night, January 12, 2024. He was best known as a philosopher of language and made important contributions to metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the free will problem. For most readers of the Mises page, though, what will probably be of most interest are his posts about
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
Thomas Hill Green, an eighteenth-century English philosopher, didn’t believe it was possible to have a good society without a powerful state. David Gordon explains why Green’s argument fails to impress. Original Article: Why Society Doesn’t Need the
How Nations Escape Poverty: Vietnam, Poland, and the Origins of Prosperity by Rainer Zitelmann Encounter Books, 2024; xiii + 212 pp. Rainer Zitelmann has a well-deserved reputation as a defender of the free market; few, if any, can match his immense capacity for amassing relevant facts and using them effectively to support his arguments. This
Life after Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money by George Gilder Regnery Gateway, 2023; 212 pp. George Gilder looks at things in an original way, but this is not always a virtue. There is much good sense in Life after Capitalism , but to find it readers will have to wade through a great deal of
How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite by Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall Independent Institute, 2024; xvii + 198 pp. This is an excellent book, but I should like to begin, characteristically, with a complaint. Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall, who are both economists favorable to the free market,
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
In a recent symposium on Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty , philosopher Matt Zwolinski takes issue with Rothbard on Murray’s views of freedom and property rights. Original Article: Zwolinski Tries to Take Rothbard to the Mat
“These days, Stoicism is very fashionable, and popular books on this subject are easy to find. Ludwig von Mises drew from a different tradition of Greek ethics, Epicureanism.” Presented at the 2024 Human Action Conference on Friday, 17 May 2024, at the Mises Institute in Auburn,
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.