Other Schools of Thought

Rothbard: "At the outset of every step forward on the road to a more plentiful existence is saving….Without saving and capital accumulation there could not be any striving toward nonmaterial ends."

Marx and Engels denied that the individual played a role in historical evolution, and the idea of "individualism" remains an important antidote to Marxism today. 

Jeff Deist details the good, bad, and ugly of a book on the history of the Austrian school, written by a left-progressive historian from a critical perspective.

The American economy could not recover from legislative onslaughts by both the Republican and then the Democratic administrations. Individual enterprise, the mainspring of unprecedented wealth, didn't have a chance.

David Gordon reviews Mario Rizzo and Glen Whitman's discussion of behavioral economics, which suggests we know much less about the prevalence of irrational choice than behavioral economists think we do.

Do your neighbors do things that annoy you? Just give the government a call. They're ready and willing to assist with any effort that increases their power and influence, 24/7.

Even when an economic bust appears, there may still be enough real savings in the economy to quickly put the economy back on track. This is what brings economic recovery, not artificial "stimulus."

First Bob explains his contest involving Adventures in Pacifism–winner gets 100 smackers. Then he explains the incredibly powerful, and surprisingly Austrian, result by which Kenneth Arrow showed it was impossible to coherently aggregate individual preferences into a social ranking.

Dan McCarthy, Editor at Large of The American Conservative, joins Bob to discuss his view that conservatives and libertarians should stop heaping contempt on democracy. McCarthy argues that the elites are the real threat to liberty, not the masses.

No, “societal” value is not what you want or think is good, and “we” are not a homogenous entity of observable, aggregated preferences.