Category Archive: 6b.) Mises.org

Educating for Liberty: Mises Circle in Tampa

Students apply here for an attendance scholarship.The state has a stranglehold on education. From kindergarten to post-graduate programs in public institutions, students are indoctrinated with state narratives wokeism, and the virtues of economic interventionism. Some conservative governors are battling the progressive leftists’ takeover of the education system by banning DEI programs, altering curricula, and appointing new college presidents and...

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The Politics of Envy

Socialists and other leftwingers support taxation of the income and wealth of the well off. They say that they want to promote “equality” and “social justice,” but in fact they are motivated by envy. They want what others have. They can’t stand the thought of other people’s having more money than they do.Here is what Rob Larson, an economics professor at Tacoma Community College, says about certain very expensive apartments: “Besides the return of...

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Javier Milei and Argentina’s Economic Challenge

In this interview for The Misesian, we ask economist (and Argentina native) Nicolás Cachanosky about the prospects for a lasting change to Argentina’s highly inflationary and interventionist economy. The Misesian: It seems to many that Javier Milei was elected due to widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the economy in Argentina. Is this a correct assessment?Nicolás Cachanosky: Yes, I believe that is quite accurate. Argentina’s economy has...

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FISA: How a Watergate-Era “Reform” Turned into a Mechanism of Massive State Surveillance

In 50 years since the Watergate scandal—famously resulting in President Richard Nixon’s resignation—there has been a flood of “post-Watergate morality,” in which Congress pushed through a number of “reforms” designed to curb government abuses. The Nixon Administration exerted great effort to conceal its organization of the break-in, as Nixon and his aides authorized a plan instructing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to interfere with the...

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Do We Finally Have a Peace Ticket?

Just as the Harris/Walz campaign was looking for a boost from the content-free Democratic National Convention last week, real drama broke out that pulled the country’s attention back toward Republican candidate Donald Trump. Rumors had been swirling for days that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. might suspend his independent run for the White House and endorse Donald Trump and on Friday he did just that.In his powerful speech explaining the decision, RFK,...

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Austrian Business Cycle Theory: An Introduction

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...

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Only the Federal Reserve Can Cause Inflation

During election years, incumbent presidents are routinely blamed for every societal ill during the previous four years. And almost nothing is riper for the picking than a significant rise in consumer prices. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), prices are currently increasing at a rate of 3 percent year over year and peaked at 8 percent during President Biden’s term in 2022.That is significantly higher “inflation,” as the BLS defines...

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The Fed’s Fiat Money Is the Real Cause of Price Inflation

During election years, incumbent presidents are routinely blamed for every societal ill during the previous four years. And almost nothing is riper for the picking than a significant rise in consumer prices. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), prices are currently increasing at a rate of 3 percent year over year and peaked at 8 percent during President Biden’s term in 2022.That is significantly higher “inflation,” as the BLS defines...

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Natural Law and Rothbardian Liberty

Natural law is often regarded with suspicion by social scientists because they conceptualize human nature, and increasingly even the nature of animals, as a social construct. In their view there is no essential human nature by reference to which we can decide what is in the best interests of society. They argue that we must instead adopt an aspirational approach, by constructing a better and fairer world for the planet, and by discovering what is...

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The Incursion into Russia Will Not Solve Ukraine’s Biggest Problem

Earlier this month, Ukrainian forces crossed their northern border and entered Russian territory. The Ukrainians quickly took village after village as the Russian troops stationed in this Kursk region were sparse, often conscripted, and in some cases even unarmed.Ukraine claimed to have captured over 400 square miles of Russian territory. Top Ukrainian officials and many of the staunchest supporters in Western media celebrated the operation as a...

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What the Media Says about Homeschooling

You would think that the growing popularity of homeschooling in the United States would be in more news headlines. Estimates from the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) reveal a staggering increase in the number of homeschool students since the 1970s—by a factor of 238. Of course, there was a surge in homeschooling during the Covid lockdowns, when many public schools either went completely virtual or implemented harsh measures that...

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Nothing Ever Happens

We are stuck in the middle of the road, far away from full socialism or the unhampered market.On Friday August 2, due to a disappointing jobs report, there was a large sell off on the stock market. After understanding Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) and the structural fragility the Federal Reserve creates in the production structure, my temptation upon seeing such a large swing in the market is to say, “Finally, I am vindicated! The boom-bust...

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Diplomacy, Distrust, and Nuclear War

The war in Ukraine rages. Underwritten by US dollars, arms, intelligence, and provocation, US leaders have prolonged the war. And, in funding and arming Ukraine to the teeth, they have escalated tensions with Russia, a nation with thousands of nuclear weapons. Just this week, for the third straight month, the Russian military conducted drills to prepare for using short-range, “tactical” nuclear weapons. The risks could not be graver. Yet, as the...

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Industrial Policy, Green Deals, and the Well-Paid New Public Intellectuals

The renaissance of industrial policy has been promoted by a breed of public intellectuals with considerable financial interests as they are well paid consultants for governments.Our new book, Moonshots and the New Industrial Policy: Questioning the Mission Economy, takes a critical look at the renaissance of state capitalism and interventionist industrial policies. The book features contributions from 23 different scholars, it is published by...

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How the Federal Government Conquered Utah

[Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory, by Brent M. Rogers, Nebraska University Press, 2017, xiv + 383 pp.] Behind its clinical-sounding subtitle about “federal management,” Brent Rogers’s Unpopular Sovereignty contains essential history for understanding how American westward expansion paved the way for the growth of federal power during and after the American Civil War.Contrary to the popular myth that...

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The Fable of the Economic “Soft Landing”

According to some commentators, to counter inflation interest rates in the US must increase to a level that effectively restrains the economy. It is held that this increase in interest rates does not have to cause a recession if Fed’s policy makers could orchestrate a “soft landing.” The economy is portrayed as a spaceship that occasionally deviates from a path of “stable” economic growth and “stable” prices. All that is required to fix the problem...

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American Peronism: Kamala’s Plan to Ruin America’s Economy

Price controls, higher taxes, government intervention, and subsidies paid for by printing a constantly devalued currency.These are the essential pillars of “21st century socialism” and the radical left Peronism that obliterated Argentina. These are also the main elements of the economic plan presented by Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. Undoubtedly, this is the most radical socialist economic plan ever announced by the Democrats.According to...

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Presidential Election or Economic Illiteracy Contest?

The 2024 Presidential election appears to be a showdown between two major party candidates vying to display the most evident lack of understanding of economics. On one hand, Donald Trump advocates for hyper-protectionism and even entertains the idea of reverting to mercantilism, in addition to proposing that the President should have influence over setting interest rates at the Federal Reserve. Despite the glaring absurdity of the latter proposal,...

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The Mises-Hoiles Correspondence: What Might Have Been

From 1949 to 1962, two libertarian giants exchanged several letters until a sharp conflict caused the correspondence to cease abruptly. An American entrepreneur and a staunch libertarian-anarchist, Raymond Cyrus (R.C.) Hoiles (1878–1970) established an impressive newspaper syndicate that would eventually become known as Freedom Newspapers, Inc.—the largest libertarian communications network to date. The other, iconic Austrian economist Ludwig von...

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Why State Enforcement of “Fairness” is Wrong

There is a popular perception that the role of the state is to uphold and enforce “fairness” much like a playground monitor ensures that children are not bullying each other, and that everyone is getting a fair chance to be included in the game. The fear is that if teachers do not monitor the schoolyard it might descend into the Lord of the Flies. Likewise, the state is said to have a moral duty to ensure fairness and goodwill among all citizens in...

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