[Reprinted from The Austrian (September – October 2016).] Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong Harvard Business Press Review, 2016 xi + 223 pages Cohen and DeLong are well-known economists, but they indict their fellow economists for an overemphasis on theory. Away with
[ Debating Gun Control: How Much Regulation Do We Need? By David DeGrazia and Lester H. Hunt. Oxford University Press, 2016. Xvi + 269 pages.] The authors are well-qualified for a good debate, and the book does not disappoint. Hunt is a philosopher of libertarian inclinations who has written books on Nietzsche, human character, and Robert Nozick.
Today is Hans Hoppe’s birthday. He is an outstanding libertarian theorist, in the tradition of Murray Rothbard, and his strikingly original work ranges widely over philosophy, history, and economics. Among his many contributions are a defense of self-ownership and property rights through argumentation ethics and a trenchant criticism of
Critics of capitalism from Marx to Bernie Sanders claim that the free market exploits the working class for the benefit of the rich; and even some “classical liberals” of recent vintage argue that capitalism needs to be supplemented by a guaranteed basic income or the like. The critics have matters precisely wrong. In the free market, workers’
Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong Harvard Business Press Review, 2016 xi + 223 pages Cohen and DeLong are well-known economists, but they indict their fellow economists for an overemphasis on theory. Away with models that have little relation to reality, our authors say.
Harvey Cox has had a remarkable career as a theologian. He became famous with The Secular City , published in 1965; and fifty years later — he is now eighty-seven — he is still writing. His latest book displays both the virtues and defects characteristic of his work. He has read widely and often makes insightful remarks; but he lacks depth and
The authors of American Amnesia , well-known political scientists from Yale and Berkeley, argue that supporters of the free market have forgotten a fundamental truth. Defenders of the market often point to the “Great Fact,” as the distinguished economic historian Deirdre McCloskey terms it, i.e., the amazing increase in human well-being and wealth
The anarcho-capitalism that Murray Rothbard favored differed entirely from the American system of government, and he saw the State as a gang of robbers. It by no means followed from this, though, that he was uninterested in politics. Quite to the contrary, he was passionately absorbed in it. I have never known anyone with as great an ability to
[ Unequivocal Justice. By Christopher Freiman. Routledge, 2017. Ix + 157 pages.] Christopher Freiman has in this brilliant book uncovered a flaw at the heart of much contemporary political philosophy, especially the sort of ideal theory influenced by John Rawls. Freiman wishes “to examine the version of ideal theory that focuses on institutions .
Brink Lindsey, Vice President for Research at the Cato Institute, argues that contemporary libertarianism has followed the siren song of “natural rights,” in a way that renders it unable to have a wide public appeal. In a recent article, “ The Poverty of Natural Rights Libertarianism ,” Lindsey writes: For the half-century or so of the modern
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.