These days, there is an increasing awareness of how artificially lowered interest misleads whole legions of entrepreneurs—a core point in the Austrian business cycle. But, still, the question always nags at people who think they grasp the basic idea: why do businessmen continue to fall for this scam? The gist of their query is this: surely, Scott
Imagine that, here in Switzerland, two sets of neighbors come to hold very different views about how they should live. In the first—Ouestville, we shall call it—the people start to live in a manner a little more grand than their incomes can support. They habitually trade with their neighbors in Ostdorf but they also display a far greater appetite
When it comes to matters of political economy, we sometimes find ourselves wondering whether there must be an evil genie at work. We say this because economics is the only discipline we know in which commentators and policymakers constantly repeat age-old falsehoods and persist in resurrecting the long-dead errors which preceding generations of
In 1922, as the Weimar hyperinflation was raging all about him, Fritz Lang’s iconic film “ Dr. Mabuse—der Spieler “ very much captured the Zeitgeist of those dreadful days. The main protagonist, the fiendish Mabuse, sought, by manipulating those around him, to tear down the very fabric of society, not to build up a new one—much less to
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.