Philosophy and Methodology

Are modern economists pseudoscientists like the astrologers of old?

Truly cohesive communities can only exist on a relatively small scale. Most people outside these groups will then be seen as "outsiders." Our goal must be to minimize conflicts with these outsiders, and voluntary exchange is our best option.

In a recent article at The Atlantic, libertarianism was singled out and criticized for valuing freedom more than justice. David Gordon explains that libertarianism doesn't value freedom more than justice. It defines justice differently.

Human beings like to form cooperative groups to achieve various ends. Research has shown, however, that there are limits to the size and nature of these groups, and this is why the state so often turns to violence.

Compared to the golden age of innovation, now maligned as the "Gilded Age," technological innovation has slowed considerably. But, it doesn't have to be this way, if we can only get the state out of the way.

Many advocates for free markets often mistakenly speak of "the market" as if markets by themselves somehow solve problems or provide incentives. Only people can do these things, and markets are just a means to an end.

The new trend among famous economists is pointing out the times they changed their views in light of new empirical findings. Far from defending economics as a science and a profession, this trend actually reveals the unscientific and ideological nature of mainstream economics.

Populism was in the air this week as ranchers in the Western US opposed the spread of federally-owned lands, and reformers in Switzerland look to a referendum on fractional reserve banking.

Murray Rothbard dreamed of a fellowship program at the Mises Institute where students could become new Austrian scholars. In the twenty years since Rothbard’s death, the Mises Institute has worked with hundreds of young academics to build a new generation of Austrians.

Political Correctness is best understood as propaganda. But unlike propaganda, which is particular campaign or effort, PC is all-encompassing. It seeks to mold us into modern versions of Marx’s un-alienated society man, freed of all his bourgeois pretensions and humdrum social conventions.