In my article last week, I talked about Michael Huemer’s notion of “false fallacies.” These are often listed in logic books as bad arguments, but some of them, Huemer suggests, are actually good arguments, at least if suitably modified. This week, I’d like to talk about another false fallacy, one that Huemer doesn’t include on his list. This is
Re-reading Economics in Literature: A Capitalist Critical Perspective by Matt Spivey Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2021, 133 pp. David Gordon (dgordon@mises.org) is a senior fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies . Matt Spivey asks an important question. Literary critics often use economics to interpret
Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers John Kay and Mervyn King New York: Norton, 2020, xvi + 528 pp. David Gordon (dgordon@mises.org) is a senior fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies . Kay and King are not Austrians, but in this important book, they lend aid and comfort to several key
The Essential Austrian Economics Christopher J. Coyne and Peter J. Boettke Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2020, 68 pp. David Gordon (dgordon@mises.org) is a senior fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies . Christopher Coyne and Peter Boettke, both professors of economics at George Mason University, say, “The
Julie Ponesse, a philosophy professor specializing in ethics who until recently taught at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, has a moving video in which she protests the requirement at her university that she get a covid-19 vaccination in order to continue teaching. She points out that it is her absolute right to decide what substances
Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and Empire by Paul Cantor 1976; University of Chicago Press, 2017, 228 pp. Paul Cantor will probably be best known to readers of the Mises page for his pioneering use of Austrian economics in literary criticism, and many will also be aware of his brilliant studies of popular culture. (For the former topic, see my
Chandran Kukathas is one of the best contemporary political philosophers, and one of the few sympathetic to libertarian views. Unlike Murray Rothbard, he does not consider self-ownership fundamental but instead defends libertarianism from a different standpoint that is skeptical of principles considered apart from their expression in particular
Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War by Samuel Moyn Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 400 pp. Samuel Moyn is a distinguished intellectual historian who teaches both history and law at Yale. His earlier books were written for an academic audience, but in Humane he has an urgent message that he wishes to convey to the general
Uskali Mäki is one of the leading philosophers of economics of the past half century; moreover, he is well versed in Austrian economics, though not an adherent of the school. In this week’s column, I’d like to consider some issues he raises in his paper “ Scientific Realism and Austrian Explanation ” ( Review of Political Economy , 1990). Mäki is
A correspondent sent me an argument I hadn’t heard before that concludes that it’s not morally permissible for libertarians to work for public universities, and in this week’s column, I’d like to examine that argument. To telegraph where I’m going, I don’t think the argument works, but even if I’m right, it doesn’t follow that it is morally
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.