From Gene Epstein in Barron’s : LUDWIG VON MISES (pronounced “meezis”) had an unusually active existence for a person who mainly led a life of the mind. That life makes for a good story, skillfully told in Mises (Mises Institute, 2007) by economist Jorg Guido Hulsmann. To find this lengthy biography enthralling, however, it is probably necessary
The Bush administration gives advice on an interesting get-rich scheme ( WSJ ) Blowing the whistle on big-time tax cheats could make some informants wealthy -- as long as they have hard evidence and plenty of patience. Just over a year ago, President Bush signed legislation authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to pay sharply higher rewards to
At some point in the last 12 months, a Mises.org reader wrote to say thanks again for the hundreds of books on the site, whose value has vastly increased thanks to the Sony Reader, which easily imports PDFs and allows you to carry around a big library in a thin, 6x9 package. Sounds great! Sadly, however, I’m not impressed with the Sony Reader that
The new edition of Road to Serfdom that we are now carrying is called the “definitive edition” because it includes referee reports on the book, and other materials. Here is a report on the pre-publication manuscript from Frank Knight (1943): “In sum, the book is an able piece of work, but limited in scope and somewhat one-sided in treatment. I
It turns out that Garet Garrett wrote one last novel called Harangue, published in 1926. It tells the story of a socialist workers movement and its control of a North Dakota town (see the Wikipedia entry on the Non-Partisan League ). I nearly got in a car crash on the way to work because I couldn’t stop reading it. Anyway, I just have to pass on
According to the NYT , the problem with the government’s handling of the fires is due to poor coordination between agencies (reform!), communication snafus (reform!), and not enough money (fork
I don’t intend a live blog of Garrett’s book Harangue (1926)—about half finished—but I did want to share these observations on the socialist movement of the 1920s, in the words of one of the characters who treats the whole movement with some distance. Elsewhere, Garrett treats the problem of how and why the wealthy “buy” socialist ideology as a
Brad DeLong, self-professed Keynesian and social democrat, writes an excellent review of Jame’s Scott’s Seeing Like a State . He points out that Scott doesn’t seem to understand the intellectual roots of his own ideas: those roots are Mises and Hayek. This is a very good review and very much worth
Here is that passage that explains why Albert Jay Nock called his book Snoring as a Fine Art : Snoring should be regarded as a fine art and respected accordingly. If this be admitted, I might suggest further that our civilization does not so regard it, as it should, and gives the practice no encouragement, but rather the contrary. Consequently one
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.
