Mises Search

Imagine you are a promising car mechanic who wants to open a new car repair shop. You would like to provide basic services to low-income citizens at affordable prices. You would charge a bare minimum for your labor, and you would buy used (but decent) replacement parts. This service would be great for people who just want to keep their cars

Crony capitalism is everywhere around us. We are so used to it that we often don’t even notice it. Any time a privately-owned business uses its influence on government officials (e.g., friendship, money, or other favors) to shape government policies in its favor or to avoid the enforcement of the existing laws, we are faced with an example of

  Utility is the importance that we attach to things. We make choices on the basis of this importance. Indeed, in economic terms, “utility,” “importance,” and “value” are synonyms. We choose what is more important to us and give up what is less important. Utility is subjective. Carl Menger (1840–1921) is the father of this subjective theory of

In the last several months, retail stores have sales on all sorts of products. Discounts go as far as 90% off. Some of these widespread price reductions can be attributed to the holiday season behind us, while most of them, it seems, were triggered by the recent fall in consumer demand due to the macroeconomic downturn. This might induce some

Many of today’s social theorists are utilitarians. Broadly speaking, a utilitarian is someone who believes justice can be arrived at through a cost-benefit analysis. For example, a utilitarian economist would tell you that, before considering a new law, one needs to determine the “social” costs and benefits of such a law. If these benefits exceed

From the introductory undergraduate to the advanced PhD courses in microeconomics, most students are taught that the concept of an indifference curve is very useful in analyzing individual choice. I emphasize the term “useful” for a reason. No professor I have asked about the concept ever said it was literally true. I don’t think anyone who

“The few who did not take their lives into their own hands and waited for government support are still waiting.” The current economic crisis has captured pretty much everyone’s attention by now. The debates over what caused it are ongoing. One of the popular debates revolves around the question of who is right, the Keynesians or the Austrians.

“There is no unit of measurement for value and no apparatus that can compare how much something is worth to two different individuals.” Many theorists have attempted to explain why some nations are wealthier than others. One recent explanation by psychologist Richard Lynn is both unusual and chilling at the same time. It is unusual because of its