In his excellent book Choice, Robert Murphy beautifully described how Ludwig von Mises saw the power of ideas:
Mises literally thought that world peace rested on the capacity of people to use their reason in order to grasp the advantages of social cooperation. This aspect of his thought helps to shed light on the passion with which Mises describes the workings of a market economy based on private property and monetary calculation. For Mises, sharing the logical deductions of economic science with the masses was a moral duty because the fate of civilization itself rested on teaching enough people the truth.
Since its founding in 1982, the Mises Institute has operated with the same vision and commitment to truth with which Mises lived his life.
You already understand the power and importance of Mises’s ideas and the great scholars he inspired, like Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, and Henry Hazlitt. The Mises Institute has no doubt played a pivotal role in introducing you to the works of these incredible scholars, and empowered you with the knowledge of Austrian economics, the philosophy of liberty, and how both are vital to peace.
If so, your own experiences serve as testament to the power of the Mises Institute’s publishing side, which has not only kept in print vital treatises, but a rich library on Austrian economics, liberty, and peace, but provides these works at no cost. Through its publications, such as today’s Mises Wire and The Austrian, the Mises Institute serves as a fountainhead for analysis on contemporary events and issues from an Austrian and libertarian perspective. Especially in times like these, with the world adrift in an international epidemic of unprecedentedly reckless monetary policy, a regular source of Austrian commentary is more important now than ever.
The Mises Institute, however, is not just a website. As the world’s leading research center dedicated to Austrian economics, and equipped with one of the largest private libraries in the United States, the Mises Institute’s academic programs have proven to be one of the most effective scholastic incubators in the world. While the Austrian school of economics rightfully celebrates the “great masters” of the past, it’s an intellectual tradition thriving today with influential scholars located throughout the world.
One example is Dr. Peter Klein at Baylor University, whose work on entrepreneurial science has spawned a generation of Austrian scholars making a niche in business schools around the country researching the role of entrepreneurs in the economy, and applying Austrian insights to business organizations. Among this group of Austrian scholars is Per Bylund of Oklahoma State, who along with his university work writes regularly for Entrepreneur magazine, offering an entirely new audience Misesian ideas.
Of course, the Austrian school is perhaps most closely identified today with its contributions to monetary theory. Not only were Mises Institute Senior Fellow Mark Thornton and Associated Scholar Frank Shostak among the most vocal voices warning of the dangers of the last decade’s housing bubble, but Joseph Salerno’s continuing work on the War on Cash and the dangers of negative interest rates has illustrated how the lens of Austrian economics is indispensable to understanding what’s really going on in the global economy.
With every new Mises University, with every new Rothbard Graduate Seminar, and with every new Mises Fellows class, the ranks of Austrian scholars grow.
But the battle for hearts and minds cannot be contained within academia. And that is why, as exciting as the ideas themselves are, what may be the most encouraging is the demand we’ve seen around the world.
Consider this, the Mises Institute today is “searched for” more around the world than such prominent beltway organizations as the Heritage Foundation, Brookings Institute, or the Council on Foreign Relations — and with a fraction of the budget of these establishment giants. The case can be made that no research organization in the world makes a bigger impact with its resources than the Mises Institute.
In Planning for Freedom, Mises wrote that “Great conflicts of ideas must be solved by straight and frank methods; they cannot be solved by artifices and makeshifts.”
Throughout his life, Mises was confronted with a choice between standing firmly for principle, or opting for a “pragmatic” compromise. Time and time again, Mises stayed true to the ideas he believed in.
The best way to advance liberty today is for those who share in his cause to do the same and follow his committed example.
This commitment to principle is what separates the Mises Institute from other organizations nominally dedicated to the cause of liberty. This commitment to principle is the key to the success of the Mises Institute. And this commitment to principle is why we ask for your support.
The Institute has no billionaire backers and receives no government grants, we are funded entirely by a passionate group of donors who believe in these ideas and understand how vital they are to achieve a better future. If you are not already, we hope you will consider joining them in advancing Austrian economics, freedom, and peace.
“Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.”
