Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Is Democracy under Attack in Canada? No, but It Should Be

When the legacy media tells you that democracy is under attack in Canada, don’t believe it. Democracy is alive and well, working exactly as it was designed to work, which is to benefit the political class and their friends at the expense of average citizens who still believe that their vote actually means something. This is consistent with how democracy works in most democratic countries. Professors Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page tell us: The...

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Decorum Propels DC Deceit

The president's SOTU speech has become an annual presentation of a new set of White House lies. But official Washington believes it is worse to publicly boo false statements than to make them. Original Article: "Decorum Propels DC Deceit" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Jeremy Bentham: From Laissez-Faire to Statism

[An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995)]   Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) began as a devoted Smithian but more consistently attached to laissez-faire. During his relatively brief span of interest in economics, he became more and more statist. His intensified statism was merely one aspect of his major — and highly unfortunate — contribution to economics: his consistent philosophical utilitarianism. This contribution, which...

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Why the 1787 Constitution Did Not Bring Republican Government to America

It's a myth that the "Founding Fathers" made America a republic in 1787. It was the state governments and their constitutions that did this. But the top-down myth glorifying the central government endures.  Original Article: "Why the 1787 Constitution Did Not Bring Republican Government to America" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Just Say No to the New Forever War

American and European political elites seem to be wanting the Russia-Ukraine war to be fought to the last Ukranian and have done nothing to bring peace. It's time for a change. Original Article: "Just Say No to the New Forever War" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Business Cycle Intel Report

Mark uses Intel Corporation, the computer chip manufacturer, as a barometer of the business cycle. He looks at the stock price in recent years, its production capacity expansion, and the company's very recent cost- and dividend-cutting moves. Check out Mark Thornton's free book, The Skyscraper Curse: And How Austrian Economists Predicted Every Major Economic Crisis of the Last Century: Mises.org/Curse Be sure to follow Minor Issues at...

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Making Nonsense from Sense: Debunking Neo-Calvinist Economic Thought

A few years ago I wrote about some of the errors made by economists who try to apply what they believe are Christian principles to both Austrian and neoclassical economic analysis. These economists believe that the standard economic way of thinking is not only fatally flawed but actually immoral, and that an entire new paradigm must be brought to economics. In the mid-1990s, I taught economics as an adjunct at a Christian college near Chattanooga,...

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China’s Emerging Global Leadership Isn’t Just the Result of Subsidies: Entrepreneurship Still Matters in This Market

China has become a global leader in the electric vehicles (EVs) sector, and Western governments are worried that its comparative advantage will become entrenched. Once again, mainstream pundits blame China’s success on government subsidies and unfair competition. This is just a pretext to argue for more government support in a sector which, from the very beginning, has not been driven by genuine consumer demand but by a political green agenda....

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The Politicization of Procreation: The Ultimate in “the Personal Is Political”

Gloria Steinem declared, "The personal is political." Today, politics has reached into family life and even procreation itself, an unhappy trend for unhappy people. Original Article: "The Politicization of Procreation: The Ultimate in "the Personal Is Political"" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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The Economics of National Divorce, Part II

Tom Woods joins the show for a look at the hottest political topic of the day, namely national divorce. This is a spirited discussion of the politics, economics, and mechanics of how America might break up.  Watch "The Economics of National Divorce, Part I" with Ryan McMaken: Mises.org/HAP352 [embedded content]

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Mill at a Loss

On John Stuart Millby Philip KitcherColumbia University Press, 2023; 152 pp. John Stuart Mill wasn’t Murray Rothbard’s favorite philosopher, and Philip Kitcher’s short book would confirm this dislike. Rothbard viewed Mill as a fuzzy thinker, overly prone to compromise and averse to firm principles. These qualities are among those that lead Kitcher to praise Mill, but Rothbardians nevertheless have much to learn from Kitcher, who is a leading...

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Why Libertarians Should Support the Multipolar World

Western intellectuals and their political allies are pushing relentlessly toward a unipolar world. Freedom lies in the multipolar direction. Original Article: "Why Libertarians Should Support the Multipolar World" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Artificial Intelligence Can Serve Entrepreneurs and Markets

Marketplace competition is reaching a new high with the era of artificial intelligence—deep machine learning capabilities offered to the entrepreneur as specialized services. AI tools as services spanning the marketplace are popping up at a rate that is seemingly increasing firms’ productivity and competitiveness. However, what implications do offering AI and deep learning as a service have for market operations, buyers, and sellers? When AI...

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No, Red State Economies Don’t Depend on a “Gravy Train” from Blue States

When Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called (again) for "national divorce" this week, a common retort among her detractors on Twitter was to claim that so-called red states are heavily dependent on so-called blue states to pay for pretty much everything. Reporter Molly Knight claimed, for example, that "Red states get their money for roads and cops and schools from blue states. You cut off that gravy train and you e [sic] got a...

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The Forgotten Lessons of Government-Enforced Race Relations

Judge Andrew Napolitano looks at the history of government and race relations in our nation's history. It's not a pleasant or uplifting story. Original Article: "The Forgotten Lessons of Government-Enforced Race Relations" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Saint Augustine, Proto-Austrian

In a past Mises Wire article, I’ve written about how Saint Thomas Aquinas’s definition of hope correlates incredibly well with what Carl Menger would describe in his definition a good six centuries later. This trend of religious figures like Aquinas and his later followers, the late Spanish scholastics, discovering economic truths despite studying theology, not economics, can be found often throughout the course of history. Tom Woods has explained...

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Why MTG Is Right About National Divorce

On this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken and Tho Bishop discuss this week's Twitter and media campaign by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene promoting the idea of national divorce. Ryan and Tho read through some of the tweets that the Representative from Georgia made about the practical advantages of a soft secession, as well as comments made by "Very Serious People" deeply offended at the suggestion. Is Marjorie Taylor Greene...

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Will AI Learn to Become a Better Entrepreneur than You?

While artificial intelligence has its merits, it still cannot perform the job of the Misesian entrepreneur. That is a good thing. Original Article: "Will AI Learn to Become a Better Entrepreneur than You?" This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.

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Biden versus Bastiat

Whether well-intentioned or otherwise, a “Made in China” ban for construction materials on federally funded infrastructure projects will benefit a chosen political class to the detriment of all else. “This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly . . . We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights.” Frédéric Bastiat’s scathing satire of the absurdity of...

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Ludwig von Mises’s Monetary Theory in Light of Modern Monetary Thought

Ludwig von Mises's contributions to the development of the technical methods and apparatus of monetary theory continue to be neglected today, despite the fact that Mises succeeded exactly eight decades ago, while barely out of his twenties, in a task that still admittedly defies the best efforts of the most eminent of modern monetary theorists, viz., integrating monetary and value theory. Such a unified and truly "general theory" is...

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