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In 2002, President George W. Bush helped make us poorer by signing off on higher steel tariffs. In 2009, President Barack Obama helped make us poorer by signing off on higher tire tariffs. Is this supposed to be change we can believe in? Economic analysis shows that trade creates wealth. The law of comparative advantage demonstrates that when we

[This article is based on Professor Carden’s lecture “Common Objections to Capitalism,” given at the 2009 Mises University Summer Program on July 30, 2009, and available as an MP3 download .] A lot of people object to what they call “capitalism,” but their objections hold little or no water once they are examined critically. Let’s consider some of

This article is based on my notes from Jorg-Guido Hülsmann’s Mises University lecture “The Life and Work of Ludwig von Mises,” delivered at the Ludwig von Mises Institute on July 26, 2009. You can also listen to a ten-lecture series on Mises here . Professor Hülsmann was kind enough to give me permission to write this article even though it is

What is barbecue? If you ask ten people, you will get ten different answers. And if those ten people are in the same room when you ask them, you might have a fight on your hands. In Texas, barbecue is beef. In Tennessee and most of the rest of the South, it is pork. In North Carolina, the pork is pulled. In other places the pork is chopped or

[This article is based on remarks prepared for a panel on “What’s Wrong With the World?” at Rhodes College on September 29, 2009.] I assume that we all want to use the lives we’ve been given to make the world a better place. This isn’t as straightforward as it seems at first. It is insufficient merely to think globally; and depressingly many kinds

People have spilled a lot of ink both digital and real about the state of the world, kids these years, and the apparent moral and cultural poverty of modernity. We are facing, we are told, an economic crisis unlike anything we have experienced in our lifetimes, with this indicator or that indicator appearing in various outlets alongside the

[This article originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of the Freeman as “The Great Depression and World War II.” An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Keith Hocker, is available for download .] The current economic climate has a lot of people talking about the Great Depression. In particular, it has been said by people of divergent

How many times have you heard “capitalist” used as an epithet or a put-down? How many people do you know who use variations on “capitalism” to describe pretty much anything they don’t like? It’s a vice that cuts several ways. As the tea-party movement has risen to prominence, how often have you heard people denounce President Obama as a socialist?

[ Hamiltons Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution — and What It Means for Americans Today • By Thomas DiLorenzo • Three Rivers, 2009 • 256 pages. This review originally appeared in the Freeman , February 24, 2010. An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Keith Hocker, is available for download .] The more

[ Pictures of the Socialistic Future • Eugen Richter • Trans. Henry Wright • LvMI, 2010 • 160 pages.] Socialists have generally tried to do two things: dethrone and kill God so that The People or The State might be exalted, and repeal the laws of economics. They seized the opportunity in the 20th century, denouncing God as the “opiate of the