Steve Mariotti writes in The Huffington Post:
Mises, the modern day creator of the Classical Liberal movement (today also called libertarianism) destroyed the intellectual arguments of socialism by proving that it was impossible to allocate scarce resources effectively without private property and free-market prices. He showed that the more the state limited economic incentives to individuals, the greater the harm to low-income people and the general population. Centralized planning, something that was characteristic of all three types of socialism: the Nazis, the Fascists and the Communists, led to the ruin of an economy, and resulted in more and more tyranny and the rise of the totalitarian state.
Mariotti continues:
Mises disciples today see the threat of government intervention in our nation’s economy as seriously undermining economic productivity and self-starting growth. According to Peter Klein, a disciple of Mises:People are increasingly disenchanted with mainstream Keynesian views of the economy. Keynesians were blindsided by the housing bubble and the financial crisis. Their response was to pump the economy with cheap credit and huge government spending which has only prolonged the agony. The Austrians led by Mises offer a compelling alternative explanation in which booms and busts are caused by central-bank manipulation of interest rates in vain attempts to stimulate or stabilize the economy.
Mariotti concludes:
Anyone wishing to learn more about this fascinating political philosopher should visit Hillsdale College, which houses the personal library and works of Ludwig Von Mises in Hillsdale, Michigan or the Mises Institute located in Auburn, Alabama. The world’s top professional philosophers, economists, students and political scientists attend annual conferences to debate and discuss these ideas; true outcasts in a society haunted by the idea of large coercive regulation and antiquated tax codes on the world’s population.
