Three conversations at Mises University this year gave me great encouragement and confirmed the value of the work of the Mises Institute in resurrecting any and all great literature in the Austrian/libertarian milieu. All three were conversations with students about their influences and inspirations. The first case was a student who aspired to
Jeffrey Tucker: Stephan Kinsella, it’s a pleasure to have you here today. Welcome. Stephan Kinsella: Thank you. It’s good to be here. Tucker: We’re going to talk about your class for the Mises Academy, on intellectual property. Kinsella: Yes, I’m looking forward to it. We’ve been planning it for quite a while, as you know. I think the first course
Housing prices hitting 2002 levels, unemployment still at 9 percent, private-sector job growth flat, and retail sales still struggling: these are headlines that few expected three years ago. The prevailing theory in Washington was that the recession was somehow precipitated (and therefore vaguely caused) by the crash in housing prices, and many
For at least two decades, the conservative wing of education experts has touted one magic bullet (apart from vouchers): high-stakes testing. The idea is to subject students (and teachers too) to a standardized test that would create incentives to learn the basics, compel curriculum committees to toss out the fluff, yield reliable data for
Many people in my generation suffered enormous trauma at some point in our teen years. It was something our generation had to endure as a matter of technical necessity. It only lasted a few months, it’s true. It’s also true that we do not regret the final benefits that came from enduring the pain. But it left deep emotional scars which, to this
How awful we were to substitute teachers when I was in grade school! These “substitutes” — the very term implied dread mixed with malicious opportunity — didn’t know our names, our lesson plans, the class culture, and had no pre-existing expectations for our behavior. We took full advantage, switching seats, hurling paper wads, goofing off, or
The Free Market 13, no. 12 (December 1995) Washington agencies pay private-sector clipping services so senior management can know who their friends and enemies are. Journalists who write negatively about, say, the BATF, immediately enter the agency’s sights. Even if nothing is done with the information, the knowledge that it’s being collected
The Free Market 27, no. 3 (March 2009) The works of Leonard E. Read, who founded the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 1946, are now online at the Mises Institute. It is probably not the complete collected works, but it is all that he collected in book form. These are books that shaped several generations of activists, donors, writers,
Remember those silly days in the 1990s, when Clinton, Gore, and their friends cobbled together our money to put computers in every classroom and community center? The hope was that the computer would at last do what the government has so far been unable to do after a century of work: make every child literate and high-minded. It turned out 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.