Political Capitalism: How Economic and Political Power is Made and Maintained . By Randall G. Holcombe. Cambridge University Press, 2018. X + 294 pages. Randall Holcombe is best known as an economist for his work in public choice, but in this impressive new book, he adds a historical dimension to public choice by combining it with “elite theory.”
Revisionist history, as applied to World War I, began as an effort to challenge Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which claimed that the war had been imposed on “the Allied and Associated Governments” by “the aggression of Germany and her allies.” By extension, revisionist history also criticizes the decision of the United States in 1917
People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent . By Joseph E. Stiglitz. Norton, 2019. Xxvii + 371 pages. Joseph Stiglitz is an eminent economist, but it is evident from People, Power, and Profits that he is a moralist as well, and one of a peculiar sort. Early in the book, he says this: “to answer such questions
Economics In Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly . By John Quiggin. Princeton University Press, 2019. Xii + 390 pages. The Australian economist John Quiggin is dissatisfied with Henry Hazlitt’s great book Economics in One Lesson and in his new book endeavors to set its author straight. He says of Hazlitt, “His One
Paul Krugman in End This Depression Now! and elsewhere uses a story about a babysitting cooperative near Washington, D.C., to illustrate how Keynesian stimulus policies work. Each of the families in the cooperative needed a babysitter if it wanted to go out for an evening. Every family was given a certain amount of scrip, each unit of which was
[ From The Daily Bell , March 2, 2014 ] Introduction: Mark Thornton is Senior Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, with articles published often in the Mises Daily . He serves as the Book Review Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and was a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Libertarian Studies . He has
Mises and Rothbard taught that economics is a value-free science. Propositions of economics, such as the law of diminishing marginal utility, neither state nor imply any judgments about what is good or bad, right or wrong. Robert Grant, an Irish philosopher who teaches at Trinity College, Dublin, disagrees. In an article that appeared January 23
Harry Binswanger, a leading Objectivist philosopher, advances a simple argument that he thinks suffices to undermine libertarian anarchism. The argument is found in his article of January 24 for Forbes, “Sorry, Libertarian Anarchists, Capitalism Requires Government.” Binswanger’s argument starts from a correct premise. In a free market exchange,
Professor David Gordon gives his critique of John Hospers’ “Libertarianism and Legal Paternalism” paper published in The Journal of Libertarian Studies. Volume 4, Number 3 (1980) Gordon, David. “Comment on Hospers.” Journal of Libertarian Studies 4, No.3 (1980):
In this article, David Gordon offers a review of George H. Smith’s Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies . Volume 10, Number 2 (1992) Gordon, David. “Review of Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies By George H. Smith.” Journal of Libertarian Studies 10, No. 2 (1992):
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.