EUCLIDEAN GEOMETER: Given the standard axioms of Euclidean geometry, I have proved that the interior angles of a triangle always sum to 180 degrees. AUSTRIAN ECONOMIST: Okay. MAINSTREAM NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMIST: I regard the proposition that the interior angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees as a testable hypothesis. I have obtained a $15.8
Ronald Coase (1910-2013) died Monday at the age of 102. Since Coase became an economist, in the early 1930s, the economics profession has been altered enormously in fundamental ways. Most notably, perhaps, (1) the degree of analytical formality (especially the mathematical specification of theoretical models) has increased greatly in every part
A crazy claim you are probably thinking after reading my title. After all, “failed policies” are a staple of discussions and debates about government actions in the United States. Everybody, regardless of political preferences, has a list of what he regards as the most glaringly failed policies. This way of looking at the matter, however, is all
Thanks to our Donors, students who are accepted to Mises University may attend tuition-free. To expand this opportunity for future Mises University students, we’ve developed this crowdfunding campaign. It’s an easy way to send your donation straight to Mises U. Watch the video to learn more about why a donation to Mises University 2014 is one of
Bill Parker , an old friend of mine who died in 2000, was director of graduate studies in economics at Yale for thirteen years. He told me once about his struggles with his colleagues, who, he believed, were spending too much time on technique and not enough time on substance in teaching their courses. The recalcitrant colleagues maintained that
Mark Thornton discusses the unintended consequences of gun control legislation as an illustration of prohibition economics: Thornton refers to this Mises Daily article in his
Most people fear that without government (as we now know it), social and economic conditions would be horrible, with rampant crime, including theft, extortion, robbery, rape, and murder; chronic fighting among warlords and organized criminal gangs; and low rates of saving and investment, hence little or no economic growth, owing to people’s
Writing in Barron’s, Associated Scholar Per Bylund reviews George Gilder’s The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World. Parts of Knowledge and Power are well argued. Gilder’s treatment of John Maynard Keynes and his disciple Paul Krugman is quite accurate, although it may seem intemperate and blunt. Considering
Since the earliest stage of human history (say, the time of Cain and Abel), human beings have been homicidal maniacs. Yet, for untold ages, something was missing, something with the capacity to raise their murderous mania to truly magnificent heights. Only very late in human history—perhaps 10,000 years ago or thereabouts—did the long-awaited
Mainstream economics has a tremendous ability to take any substantive idea and transform it into an ooze of technicalities from which an endless stream of competing theoretical and econometric models may be squeezed indefinitely, or until the researchers’ fancy shifts to a newer sexy issue on which they can lavish their talent for pyrotechnics. As
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.
