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The writer of a recent Forbes article doesn’t want consumers making their own choices about what to buy and how much to buy. Instead, he provides a plan for consumers  to avoid what he calls excess consumerism . In other words, what the writer suggests is essentially that “excessive consumption” is terrible for you and everyone else. To put the

What contributes to the wealth of a nation? Gross national income (GNI) and gross domestic product (GDP) are two well-known measures of a country’s economic growth. One measures the earnings of a country, and the other measures the value of the final goods produced by the country. What drives these measures in the twenty-first century? We are now

The gig economy as we know it is on the verge of destruction. Gig work, otherwise known as freelance work, was once held up as an entry into the entrepreneurial economy for many people seeking to dip their toes in, but that economy is currently threatened by people who do not understand its vitality for freelance entrepreneurs. There is now a

“At birth human infants regardless of their heredity, are as equal as Fords,” wrote Ludwig von Mises in his salient book, Theory and History: The Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution . However, Mises contended that this is far from the reality of human action and how flesh-and-blood people operate in the market. While people may be born

Ludwig von Mises eloquently wrote in Bureaucracy (1944), “...thus the capitalist system of production is an economic democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. The consumers are the sovereign people. The capitalist, the entrepreneurs, and the farmers are the people’s mandatories.” Entrepreneurs are sensitive to consumer dissatisfaction,

In his landmark book, Intellectuals and Society , Thomas Sowell wrote, “Only abstract people in an abstract world are the same.” Sowell contended that there are differences between people’s knowledge and abilities. The same differences exist between an abstract entrepreneur and the Austrian concept of an entrepreneur. Austrians see the market as a

Reading Per Bylund’s interview “ How Entrepreneurs Build the World “ inspired a thought: what would the world be like without entrepreneurs? Given that entrepreneurs are central to the market system, a world without entrepreneurs—or with only a few of them—would be a grim situation. Without entrepreneurs, we’d see few new products, little

In his salient book  Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Joseph A. Schumpeter explained that introducing new methods of production and new commodities to the market is inconceivable under perfect competition . But the reality of real-world competition is that some individuals capture opportunity and others miss it. Some entrepreneurs have more

Ludwig von Mises wrote that “we are historians of the future.” But, the heterogeneity in knowledge makes it virtually impossible to know everything there about historic market trends,  or even about local economies.This is why F.A. Hayek emphasized there is no such thing as perfect knowledge among individuals at any given time. Everything is

While you were young, did you gain knowledge and learn skills that gave you the human capital necessary to become an entrepreneur or a small business owner? Human capital consists of the knowledge and habits developed as a youngster that form skillsets that later in life can be used in the business world. These skills are developed either through