Annali D’Italianistica , “Speaking Truth to Power: From Medieval to Modern Italy.” Volume 34, 2016. Edited by Jo Ann Cavallo and Carlo Lottieri. The great historian of the Italian Renaissance Jacob Burckhardt said, “Power is evil,” and Jo Ann Cavalho and Carlo Lottieri, the co-editors of this volume, would with one caveat agree with him. They
Mervyn King is the British Ben Bernanke. An eminent academic economist, who now teaches both at New York University and the London School of Economics, King was from 2003 to 2013 Governor of the Bank of England. In short, he is a very big deal. Remarkably, in The End of Alchemy he frequently sounds like Murray Rothbard. King identifies a basic
Today is the eighth anniversary of the death of Burt Blumert. It’s still hard for me to believe that Burt isn’t here anymore. Burt was the person you could always go to if you faced a difficult situation. His insights and good humor made you understand exactly what you needed to do. To get some idea of what Burt was like, I recommend his
Today is the 82 nd birthday of Butler Shaffer, one of the great pioneers of the libertarian movement. Butler taught at the Freedom School of Robert LeFevre and, until his recent retirement, he was Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. He is an outstanding legal theorist and historian. In Boundaries of Order , he shows how
As Murray Rothbard often emphasized, the free market and a peaceful foreign policy are indispensable partners. We cannot maintain a free market if the government engages in a bellicose foreign policy. A powerful and aggressive state constantly engaged in war requires vast resources to sustain it, and “military socialism” is an all-too-present
Where Bernie Went Wrong: And Why His Remedies Will Just Make Crony Capitalism Worse . By Hunter Lewis. Axios Press, 2016. 284 pages. Hunter Lewis has rendered a great service with his new book. Writing from an Austrian perspective, he has given us the definitive analysis of the Bernie Sanders phenomenon. Though Sanders did not win the Democratic
The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy by Mervyn W. King W.W. Norton & Co. 2016 xv + 431 pages Mervyn King is the British Ben Bernanke. An eminent academic economist, who now teaches both at New York University and the London School of Economics, King was from 2003 to 2013 Governor of the Bank of England. In
Sebastian Mallaby is the Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economic Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations. One can be sure, then, that his new comprehensive book, The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan , reflects an Establishment point of view. As if this were not enough to tell us where the book is coming
Today is the 22 nd anniversary of Murray Rothbard’s death. His influence continues to grow, as new generations of students, at the Mises Institute and elsewhere, discover his thought. Many besides Rothbard’s acknowledged followers have been influenced by him, but one striking example must here suffice. One of the most important books of
The Founder , a movie based on the life of Ray Kroc, vividly illustrates crucial points about entrepreneurship and the market stressed by Mises. In the film, Kroc, played by Michael Keaton, begins as a salesman selling milkshake machines. He meets the McDonald brothers, the owners of a small diner in San Bernardino, California. Kroc has come to
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.