Who Hijacked Our Free Will?
2024-02-26
Imagine someone giving a State of the World address that begins with a reminder that people possess free will and ought to be doing a better job of exercising it. This could possibly raise doubts about the speaker’s mental stability—at least until the talk went into the dark details of civilization’s condition.
Human Action Conference 2024
2024-02-24
Students apply for a scholarship here.
"Once in a great while, a book appears that both embodies and dramatically extends centuries of accumulated wisdom in a particular discipline, and, at the same time, radically challenges the intellectual and political consensus of the day. Human Action by Ludwig von Mises is such a book, and more: a comprehensive treatise on economic science that would lay the foundation for a massive shift in intellectual opinion that is still working itself out fifty years after publication."
So begins the introduction to the 1998 scholar’s edition of Mises’s Human Action, written by Jeffrey Herbener, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Joseph Salerno. These words still ring true today.
We are excited to invite you to join us at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, for our
Do Human Emotions Better Help Us Understand Economic Analysis?
2024-02-22
According to behavioral economics (BE), emotions play an important role in an individual’s decision-making process. For example, if consumers become more optimistic regarding the future, then this is going to send a message to businesses regarding investment decisions. According to BE followers, whether consumers are generally patient or impatient determines whether or not they are inclined to spend or save today.
Behavioral economists emphasize the importance of personality. An emphatic person is regarded more likely to make altruistic choices. Impulsive people are more likely to be impatient and not so good at saving up for their retirement. Venturesome people are more likely to take risks—they will be more likely to gamble.
If emotions are an important factor in the decision-making
Help the Institute Fight Censorship and Expose Government Tyranny
2023-11-24
Dear Friend,
In the chapter of The Road to Serfdom entitled “The End of Truth,” F.A. Hayek wrote that in a totalitarian society “truth” is not determined by scholarship, research, discussion, and debate but by pronouncements by the government “authorities.” Anthony Fauci’s notorious “I am science” declaration is a perfect example of such totalitarian thinking, as is Al Gore’s “settled science” declaration regarding global-warming research. Of course, no real scientist would say that scientific questions are ever “settled” forevermore. It was once “settled science” that Earth is flat, after all, and that government can make us all rich thanks to the “multiplier effect” of government spending.
But that’s just one arm of the totalitarian scissors. The other arm is that all dissenting opinions
How Fossil Fuel Revolutionized Our Kitchens and Our Food
2023-11-23
[The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything, by Ruth Goodman, Liveright Publishing Corporation; 2020. xxi + 330 pp.]
The subtitle of Ruth Goodman’s book The Domestic Revolution doesn’t come close to describing what this book is really about. Yes, this book tells us a lot about coal and how it affected Victorian domestic life. But this book is really about how what we eat and how we prepare food has been closely tied to economic, industrial, and technological changes over 400 years of history.
Moreover, this book will provide some valuable perspective for anyone who thinks he or she spends a lot of time "slaving" over a hot stove. Whatever time we spend cooking and cleaning in the twenty-first century is nothing compared to the time,