A free market is just people making voluntary exchanges. Woods makes an example out of the creation of a ham sandwich. Welfare and warfare undermine the natural economic harmony of large scale social cooperation - the free market.
Money originates by free markets via barter and gold and silver, not by governments via fiat. A story of Halloween candy demonstrates this. The double coincidence of wants is solved by money. Money that will last will be six things: generally marketable, divisible, high value per unit weight (portable), durable, recognizable, and homogeneous.
Understanding economics helps you see history better. American workers, although only lightly unionized, were more productive than others. All high standards of living are due to free markets. Governments destroy this.
Recycling happens naturally when there is market demand for waste items like plastic, paper, metal or glass, but mandated recycling does more harm than good. When do you know that recycling is worthy? You know when some person or business asks to buy your particular waste from you, not when some authority forces you to recycle.
Free market capitalism coordinates every stage of every production desired by consumers as if by magic. Knowing Austrian economics will allow you to see which public policies are disastrous to this productivity. Unintended consequences, opportunity cost, and pricing theory are fundamental concepts to explain human action.
“The Candlemakers’ Petition” is a well known satire of protectionism written and published in 1845, as part of Bastiat
From Chapter I of The Bastiat Collection: Volume I. Pages 1-48 in the text. Read by Josiah Schmidt.
Mises University was just one of the small steps that I and many others have to taken in our own careers and vocations for the cause of liberty.
An introductory economics seminar presented by Bill Peterson and Bob Luddy.
