Articles of Interest

While upholding the radical ideal, Rothbard happily cooperated with anyone who wanted to limit government power, no matter how gradually. The perfect was never the enemy of the good in his mind; the good was always an improvement. He combined idealism with realism, scholarship with accessibility, and boundless curiosity with commitment to truth.

The unscrupulous are likely to be more successful in a society tending toward totalitarianism.

Peter Seewald has published an extensive biography of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, which will be of special interest to all supporters of the Austrian school and lovers of liberty who, whether believers or not, persistently condemn the “fatal conceit” of statism.

"The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other."

In this article from 1950, Murray Rothbard suggests some of the less bad ways of financing military operations. Hint: monetary inflation and taxing savings and investment are among the worst.

Judgments of value do not measure: they arrange, they grade. If he relies only on subjective valuation, even isolated man cannot arrive at an economic decision based on more or less exact computations in cases where the solution is not immediately evident. To aid his calculations he must assume substitution relations between commodities. That's where exchange value and prices come in.

The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. Americans have added freedom and democracy. Yet the more that may be added to it the more it is the same language still. A language of power.

In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects.

The Austrian-school approach, with its realist, real-world approach, is actually more inclined toward empiricism than the neo-classical economists who tend toward very abstract theories and models.

An essential aspect of the Mengerian-Misesian tradition — the emphasis that it puts on the entrepreneurial character of all human action, that is, its inherent entanglement with the problems of scarcity and uncertainty.

Menger’s insights about the origin of social structures inspired later contributions in three main areas: spontaneous order, money, and law.

"The art of economics consists of looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

Inflation can always give only a temporary fillip to the economy, and will leave us with a legacy of postponed adjustments and new maladjustments which make our problem more difficult.

Whoever wishes to do so, freely and voluntarily. Conscription of witnesses is no more justified than conscription into the armed forces or into any other service or occupation.

Ralph Raico pays homage to Ludwig von Mises and his place in the social sciences.

I. Introduction: Setting the Stage

“Roundaboutness” is a concept featured in Austrian capital theory.

Mises: "What I aimed at in writing Human Action was to contribute my share to ... prevent[ing] America from following Europe down the path to annihilation of civilization and prosperity."

Hazlitt sees clearly that because capitalism promotes freedom, justice and productivity it has far more right to be called "social" (or "moral") than socialism which in its despotism actually promotes a code of immorality.

For decades, Huerta de Soto has devoted significant effort to academia, business, and the libertarian movement in Spain and worldwide.

Rothbard examines conservatism by using as a fulcrum and analysis of the views of the leading conservative fusionist, Frank S. Meyer.