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.
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“Desire Paths” and the Problem with Central Planning
2024-04-10
I recently attended the Austrian Economics Research Conference, which is held annually at the Mises Institute on the campus of Auburn University. After an inspiring day of presentations, I began my trek back to the Auburn University Hotel. As I made my way down the sidewalk, I found myself walking along a well-trodden dirt path. Soon enough I was back on the sidewalk, and I turned around, quickly realizing I had taken the “wrong” path. The correct one entailed taking a sharp left turn, walking up a set of stairs, and then continuing along the sidewalk at the top. This path seemed rather unintuitive, however. Why would I walk up a flight of stairs when I could simply continue walking in a straight line, all to ultimately end up in the same place? I came to a realization: I didn’t take the
Affirmative Action, Jewish Quotas, and Academic Central Planning
2024-02-06
Race-based affirmative action began with President John Kennedy’s 1961 creation of a Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC). Following that, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then in 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 that prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion and national origin by organizations that received federal contracts.
In what is considered the first legal challenge to race-based affirmative action policies in university admissions, Defunis v. Odegaard reached the Supreme Court in 1974. The plaintiff was a Sephardic Jew who had been rejected by the University of Washington law school while the school admitted racial minorities with inferior credentials. The Court ruled the case moot because the law
Serbia’s Two Traditions of Freedom
2024-02-02
Today, Serbia does not enjoy a reputation as a free country. The philosophy of strong hand, top-down organization of society, a socialist understanding of economy, and fierce nationalism are its trademarks.
The legacy of socialism with a human face, of which I have written elsewhere, has entrenched a statist mentality among the population and has shaped the understanding of economics among the political and intellectual elite.
But it is little known that Serbia developed two very important traditions of freedom in its modern history.
Of the two, the better known was the liberal-conservative movement of the second half of the nineteenth century when conservatives and liberals dominated Serbian politics. The movement consisted of influential people from the top echelons of power—prime
Does Socialism Protect Rights or Violate Them?
2024-02-02
In last week’s column, I discussed Scott Sehon’s new book, Socialism: A Logical Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2024), and this week, I’d like to continue the analysis of the book, focusing on Sehon’s discussion of rights under socialism. The main topic we need to look at is whether socialism violates important rights that people ought to be accorded in a just political and social system.
Before addressing this topic, though, we need to look at Sehon’s definition of socialism. Readers may recall that by “socialism,” Sehon means a system with “(i) Collective ownership and control of the means of production and (ii) Equality of distribution or redistribution of wealth.” Sehon uses this definition to distinguish two types of socialism, which he calls “S-socialism” and “D-socialism”:
Secession’s Opponents Embrace Colonialism and “Enlightened” Central Governments
2024-01-31
The idea of secession for some regions of the United States—sometimes simplistically called "national divorce"—has increasingly been mentioned as a way to deal with the apparent growing divide between what are crudely called "red states" and "blue states." Polls suggest that perhaps a third of the American population "indicated a ‘willingness to secede’"
Vehement opposition to the idea remains plentiful, however. Among the writers of the pundit class, any number of arguments are used to claim that secession is not desirable or moral, nor even feasible. Many conservatives, for example, rely on the standard conservative jingoism, arguing that secession is unconstitutional and "treasonous." Conservative nationalists and moralists insist that all US residents have some sort of duty to support
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