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.

This past summer I joined my son in Vienna. He was there on a fellowship from his senior year at Carleton College to study architecture, in particular the work of Otto Wagner, the Secession movement, and so on. I had only been there once before, when backpacking during law school. I accompanied him on his explorations and we feasted on Viennese cuisine at places recommended by local friends. I suggested that we take time to visit the University of Vienna, so that I could see the monuments to famous Austrian economists who had taught there. The lobby highlights Nobel prize winners, including Friedrich von Hayek; and in the “Colonnade,” or “arcade courtyard” (Arkadenhof, also locally referred to as the aula), there are dozens of monuments—busts, bas-relief plaques—dedicated to noted