Some economists are good at political philosophy as well. Mises and Rothbard of course come to mind, but the good philosophers aren’t confined to Austrian school economists. Amartya Sen and Kenneth Arrow know what they are talking about when it comes to philosophy, agree with them or not. But some eminent economists don’t, and, judging by Nicholas
Last week, I discussed the way in which Patrick Deneen misreads John Stuart Mill in his book Regime Change . I’d like to continue the assault on Regime Change this week by looking at an argument he makes against libertarianism. Libertarians, Deneen alleges, are elitists. They think that ordinary people need to be ruled by an elite class of
The Political Economy of Distributism: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good by Alexander William Salter Catholic University of America Press, 2023; xiii + 238 pp. Distributism attracted considerable attention during the 1920s and ’30s among people who wished to apply Catholic social teaching to the modern capitalist economy, and it has recently
[ Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong, Basic Books, 2022 viii + 605 pp.] J. Bradford DeLong, who teaches economics at UC Berkeley and was a protégé of Larry Summer’s dislikes Austrian economics, which he sometimes assails on his blog. You might reasonably expect that for this reason, I will
Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World without Democracy by Quinn Slobodian Metropolitan Books, 2023; 336 pp. Quinn Slobodian, a professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley College, has a good deal to say about Murray Rothbard, and I have attempted to respond to that in a review that is to be published in the next issue
Jesús Huerta de Soto, who is professor of economics at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, is the leading representative of the Austrian school of economics in Spain. He is a renowned teacher, and two of his many doctoral students, David Howden and Philipp Bagus, both now themselves professors of economics, have edited a festschrift in his
Moral Progress in Dark Times: Universal Values for the 21st Century by Markus Gabriel, translated by Wieland Hoban Polity Press, 2022; xii + 281 pp. It would be easy to give this book a negative review, as it advocates a number of policies that from our standpoint are wrongheaded. Gabriel is especially alarmed by the dangers of “climate change”
America and the Art of the Possible: Restoring National Vitality in an Age of Decay by Christopher Buskirk Encounter Books, 2023; xxv + 162 pp. Christopher Buskirk is the publisher and editor of the magazine American Greatness , and the title of that magazine, like that of the book, shows his principal concern. How can the American people regain
The eminent economist Edmund Phelps is a “liberal” in the modern sense, not a libertarian, but in his recent book My Journeys in Economic Theory (Columbia University Press, 2023), he makes a number of points that those of us who are libertarians will find useful. Opponents of rights-based libertarianism like Andrew Koppelman in his book Burning
[This article is adapted from a lecture delivered at the Reno Mises Circle in Reno, Nevada. on May 20, 2023.] We are faced today with a concentrated attack on the great thinkers of the Western tradition, who are dismissed as “dead white European males.” Robert Nozick used to say that what offended him most in this phrase was the word “dead.” It’s
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.