Because the law of comparative advantage holds for any trade between two individuals, wherever they may be located geographically or politically, it is ultimately based on the fact that no two individuals are exactly alike. To move the argument to the level of the firm or region or country only complicates the analysis, it doesn’t change the
It is now, as the spring semester draws to a close and final exams lie graded on my desk, that I face the fruits of my long labors in Fundamentals of Economics. Despite my extensive dwelling on the basically cooperative nature of the market and the signal characteristic of government as being the legitimated possession and use of coercive power,
The NYT today published the letter of resignation of Jake DeSantis, Executive Vice President of the A.I.G. Financial Products division. He’s been working 10-14 hours a day for $1, but won’t work for a boss (Edward M. Liddy) who will roll over for political hacks like of Bernie Sanders. He will give his bonus to charity, rather than see it go back
How Economics Professors Can Stop Failing Us Steven Payson Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017, xiii + 372 pp . Steven Payson, the author of this provocatively title book, is a former career federal government economist who has the temerity to argue that economics could be a useful science if mainstream academic economist theoreticians would simply
Volume 6, No. 1 (Spring 2003) Every economist who regards himself or herself as a free-market theorist and advocate should acquire, read, and retain this paean to planning and interventionism as a valuable reference—especially if he or she is also a political libertarian. There are four good reasons: (1) it names names and carefully chronicles
Volume 6, No. 2 (Summer 2003) In light of the argument presented in the present paper, it is difficult to avoid the speculation that the main argument that Hayek either half accepted or regarded as exaggerated and one-sided—at least until 1945—was, in fact, the argument that economic calculation is not possible under socialism because, either
A fascinating movement that has been swelling for weeks via the blogosphere is the “Not One Damn Dime” campaign. Here is one of a thousand postings of this. The idea is to withhold all spending on January 20, Inauguration Day, in protest against the Iraq War. The question is whether this is an effective campaign or whether people who oppose the
An email called “ A Day in the Life of Joe Republican “ is making the rounds via a thousand blogs. It is designed to illustrate how the middle class benefits enormously from big government and is too stupid to realize it. In response, I began the following alternative “Day in the Life”: Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with bottled
Volume 12, Number 4 (2009) So, what is “the enduring significance of Robbins” — the title of this article. For me, it is the stimulus given by Robbins’s Essay for reflection on the uniqueness of the Misesian conception of our subject. Only then can one see its resultant immunity from the critical brickbats hurled Robbins’s way since 1932.
Volume 16, No. 4 (Winter 2013) ABSTRACT : This paper summarizes and compares the theories of entrepreneurship of Joseph A. Schumpeter and Israel M. Kirzner as presented in their major scholarly contributions to economic analysis. It is argued that Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurial action as “the driving force of the market” contributes greatly
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.