There is only one way to describe the fiscal mindset of those in the White House and in Congress who are proposing new federal budgetary expenditure and taxing increases in the trillions of dollars: a fantasy land of financial irrationality. The Biden administration insists on additions to the already bloated American welfare state that will see
The socialist regimes of the 20th century that succeeded in comprehensively imposing their designs and central plans on the societies over which they ruled attempted to abolish any and all of the preceding institutions of civil society. Edward Shils noted this in his 1991 essay “The Virtue of Civil Society,” explaining how such regimes went to
From my Mises lecture at the 2004 Austrian Scholars Conference : It is no wonder that so many of freedom’s friends have been influenced by the Austrian economists. In the last 100 years, they have been the true political economists of liberty. The Austrian school of economics has enriched our understanding of the market economy and advanced the
Ninety years ago this month, on December 23, 1913, the Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing a national central-banking system in the United States. The governing board of the Federal Reserve was organized on August 12, 1914, and the Federal Reserve banks opened for operation on November 16, 1914. [ Continued ]
Re: Rothbard on Debt: The argument that “we owe it to ourselves” when it comes to government debt is even older than Keynes and his followers --especially Abba Lerner who emphasized this idea. David Hume refers to the popularity of this idea -- of which he is critical -- in his essay “Of Public Credit.” It is available in Hume’s collection,
The world has been plagued with periodic bouts of the economic rollercoaster of booms and busts, inflations and recessions, especially during the last one hundred years. The main culprits responsible for these destabilizing and disruptive episodes have been governments and their central banks. They have monopolized the control of their respective
At a time when belief in collectivism and paternalistic government is threatening to diminish even more of our shrinking freedom, we need to recall that this has all been tried before. And how it is the free individual, secure in his right to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property that is the basis of any and all the prosperity that we have
I have a new piece today on Northwood University’s blog, “In Defense of Capitalism & Human Progress,” on “The Debt Crisis and the Fiscal Leviathan State.” http://defenseofcapitalism.blogspot.com/2011/07/debt-crisis-and-fiscal-leviathan-state.html I explain that virtually all that is going on in Washington about the government’s debt is really
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke before a joint session of the U.S. Congress on April 29, 2015 and offered his “eternal condolences to the souls of all American people that were lost during World War II,” but never directly said that he was sorry for Imperial Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The real purpose for
As we prepare to celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence we should recall why the American colonists made their decision to break away from the British Empire. The Declaration, in the enumerated grievances against the British Crown, makes it crystal clear that the cause was Big Government. I explain this
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.