The pleaders for statism insist that while all-powerful government might be inherently bad under a despot or dictator, it can be a perfectly wholesome thing under democratic auspices with the principle of majority rule, writes Robert Montgomery. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.
Audio Mises Daily
Audio recordings of Mises Daily articles.
Nicholas Biddle was the president of the American central bank that preceded the Fed. When his bureaucratic cradle was rocked, he quickly morphed into a Machiavellian monster, writes Dan Sanchez. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.
If the government reduces both taxes and spending, it will leave more money in private hands. This money then can, and will, employ more people at higher real wages to make more of what people want most writes Percy L. Greaves, Jr. (1906–1984). This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.
The “miracle” of Germany’s revival was not the result of a conscious rejection of socialism, but was rather an accident of political and social conditions. Germans meant by freedom the freedom to impose their own controls, writes Hans F. Sennholz (1922–2007). This audio Mises Daily is narrated by...
Our ancestors relied on themselves; we rely on the welfare state. But the “safety net” that governments have stretched beneath us seems more and more to be a spider’s web, writes Robert Higgs. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.
Plato was the first of the “planners” and the true founder of socialism. In his Republic the Athenian philosopher set out a blueprint for the evolution of what has come to be called the “Welfare State”, writes S. Harcourt-Rivington. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.
It has in common with the classics all those qualities of clear thinking, objective presentation and lucid exposition which distinguish the wise philosopher from the merely intellectual pamphleteer, writes Cecil Palmer. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.
Obama’s stimulus plan is equivalent to a giant welfare scheme. Instead of the money going to lower income Americans, however, it is meant to go to municipal bureaucrats of various stripes. Instead of productive American citizens determining what to do with their own scarce resources, the state is...
The Fed is a racket at heart, a con game writ large — what else can you call an organization with the exclusive privilege of printing money in the trillions and handing it over to friends? But if this is true, what does that say about the state, the organization that created and sanctions it? Is the...
People are being told by governments, central bankers, and leading mainstream economists that money-base expansion is not inflationary — because the money would remain in the portfolios of banks and would not spill over into the hands of firms and private households. This is, to put it mildly, an...
The real threat to humanity comes from governments growing ever more powerful in the name of fighting climate change. Whether you are a “denier” or whether you think carbon dioxide emissions need to be sharply reduced very quickly, you should be extremely skeptical of the process now unfolding in...
Sometimes I wish our overlords would get their stories straight. First, Alan Greenspan told us it was impossible to tell if a bubble existed at any given time. Now we have Barack Obama insisting that not only can we detect bubbles, but we can also deflate them with sufficient dispatch to prevent...
John Maynard Keynes often employed flowery language like “animal spirits” and “liquidity trap” to describe things he did not understand. He was, after all, more of a bureaucrat than an economist. In fact, he would best be described as an anti-economist because he eschewed things like supply and...
If the current level of output and employment is made to depend on inflation, a slowing down in the pace of inflation will produce recessionary symptoms. Moreover, as the economy becomes adjusted to a particular rate of inflation, the rate must itself be continuously increased if symptoms of a...
Today is Earth day, and a week ago we “celebrated” tax day. It is fitting, in a sense, that Earth Day and Tax Day are only one week apart. Those who blame global warming on human activity see taxation as an effective and desirable means of preventing environmental global catastrophe. In a recent...
It is perhaps the finest introduction to the thought of a major thinker ever published in the discipline of economics. What makes it unique is the fact that it comprises selections and short excerpts from a broad range of Hayek’s works written over a span of forty years. Despite its broad coverage...
The German hyperinflation was the result of a policy that considered the financing of government debt by an accelerating increase in the money stock as the politically least unfavorable method. It seems that the state of opinion hasn’t actually changed much. Today, there is great public support when...
Study of the past, it is assumed, discloses the shape of things to come. Any attempt to reverse or even to stop a trend is doomed to failure. Man must submit to the irresistible power of historical destiny. This doctrine is devoid of any logical or experimental verification. Historical trends do not...
Through your commentary, you provide intellectual cover for a system and structure of power that does not deserve your support. Would you consider that the truth may be vastly different from what you have come to accept as fact? Government’s role in regulating this system of human interactions has...
The works of Leonard E. Read, who founded the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 1946, are now online at the Mises Institute. It is probably not the complete collected works, but it is all that he collected in book form. These are books that shaped several generations of activists, donors...
