Professor Janek Wasserman, to his credit, is not a polemicist. His new book The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas is indeed a critique of the broad school of economic thought now colloquially referred to as “Austrian,” but it is not only that. It is also a lively and well-paced history …

Originally published by Chronicles.
Professor Janek Wasserman, to his credit, is not a polemicist. His new book The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas is indeed a critique of the broad school of economic thought now colloquially referred to as “Austrian,” but it is not only that. It is also a lively and well-paced history of the astonishing influence prewar Viennese intellectuals had on the greater world, and continue to have in areas far beyond economics. The author’s ideology intrudes at times, but never quite so obtrusively as to derail the book’s mission. The Marginal Revolutionaries first and foremost is a worthwhile historical account of major figures from the Austrian school, and not

George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen has penned a brief manifesto for what he calls “State Capacity Libertarianism” on the Marginal Revolution blog. In it he makes the case for libertarians to embrace “state capacity” in certain limited cases. You can read his essay here.
My initial responses, in no particular order, are as follows:
1. There is no political will or constituency for skillful technocratic state management of society. This is a pipe dream, once simply referred to as elusive “good government.” When do public choicers of all people give this up?2. There is no third way between state and market, regardless of technology or material development. Futurism is bunk; the question before us today is the same as

2020 is right around the corner, and it promises to be a brutal year of politics and crazed economic proposals. The candidates will promise the stars and the moon, all with your money. Several now openly label themselves socialists. They won’t talk about the Fed, or endless wars, or debt and entitlements. But they will …

Can the increasing politicization of life in America be stopped, or even slowed?
To be sure, average Americans do not want this. Most people prefer not to lead overly political lives, beyond perhaps voting once in a while and grumbling about taxes or potholes. Most people prefer to focus on work, family, hobbies, sports, or a million other pursuits instead of politics. We watch the game instead of attending the Tuesday night city council meeting. But increasingly we all feel the pressure, drawing us inexorably into a highly-politicized world which demands we take binary “sides” on Trump, impeachment, abortion, guns, climate change, and far more. This politicization seeps into our jobs, family lives, neighborhoods places of

[The following is an excerpt from Jeff Deist’s talk at the Mises Institute’s recent summit in Los Angeles]
Introduction
Those of us who read and enjoy Mises, and he wrote so much about so many things, might well wonder what he would have to say about the state of America and the West in 2019. After all, he was a sociologist and philosopher and political theorist as well as an economist. Surely we could use his perspective today, and so much of what he wrote was prescient and still relevant.
Of course It is always dangerous to imagine what any departed intellectual or thinker would think about today’s world and today’s events, and this is certainly true of Mises too. We all love to do this, though. We all want to use Mises to make

[This article contains excerpts from a presentation given at the 70th anniversary of the publication of Human Action, in Vienna, at the Palais Coburg, November 23, 2019. 
Mises surely would be pleased by the thought of this gathering today, to know that his Vienna still has a heartbeat in Europe, even as its politicians and bankers and academics all go in the wrong direction. He certainly would be pleased and amazed to know his work would become available across the world, in many languages, free and instantly online. Most of all he would be thrilled to know his name is better known today, and his work more widely read, than during his lifetime. What more could any intellectual or writer want? This alone is a huge achievement.

[Presentation given at the 70th anniversary of the publication of Human Action, in Vienna, at the Palais Coburg, November 23, 2019. The event was sponsored by the Mises Institute Austria, in cooperation with the Institute for Austrian Asset Management and Palais Coburg.] Mises surely would be pleased by the thought of this gathering today, to …

Recorded on November 9, 2019, in Lake Jackson, Texas.

Includes an introduction by David Gornoski. Recorded on November 9, 2019, in Lake Jackson, Texas.

[The following is an excerpt from Jeff Deist’s talk at the Mises Institute’s recent summit in Los Angeles] Introduction Those of us who read and enjoy Mises, and he wrote so much about so many things, might well wonder what he would have to say about the state of America and the West in 2019. …

Ludwig von Mises and his work remain incredibly prescient and relevant today. The world needs his voice more than ever, and our speakers celebrate Mises as a supremely vital thinker well-suited for today’s challenges. Recorded in Los Angeles, California, on October 26, 2019.

Ludwig von Mises and his work remain incredibly prescient and relevant today. The world needs his voice more than ever, and our speakers celebrate Mises as a supremely vital thinker well-suited for today’s challenges. Recorded in Los Angeles, California, on October 26, 2019.

Can the increasing politicization of life in America be stopped, or even slowed? To be sure, average Americans do not want this. Most people prefer not to lead overly political lives, beyond perhaps voting once in a while and grumbling about taxes or potholes. Most people prefer to focus on work, family, hobbies, sports, or …

Presented during the “Law and History” session at the Libertarian Scholars Conference on 28 September 2019, at The King’s College in New York City.

The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politicsby Michael MaliceAll Points Books/St. Martin’s Press 2019307 pages Conservatism, Michael Malice famously remarks, is progressivism driving the speed limit. Malice’s latest book, aptly titled The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics, documents a movement of sorts to change this.  Malice is a podcaster, …

Do central bankers really think negative interest rates are rational?
“Calculation Error,” which Bloomberg terminals sometimes display1, is an apt metaphor for the current state of central bank policy. Both Europe and Asia are now awash in $13 trillion worth of negative-yielding sovereign and corporate bonds, and Alan Greenspan suggests negative interest rates soon will arrive in the US. Despite claims by both Mr. Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell concerning the health of the American economy, the Fed’s Open Market Committee moved closer to negative territory today — with another quarter-point cut in the Fed Funds rate, below even a measly 2%.
Negative interest rates are just the latest front in the post-2008 era of

The best people in the world support the Mises Institute. 5,112 people to be exact. Will you join them? Who are they? People just like you. Average people who happen to care deeply about human liberty and human flourishing. People who care about real economics. People who oppose state power, central banks, and war. People who …

Bloomberg terminals, the financial software system used by countless analysts and traders around the world, has a problem: its system cannot price callable bonds using negative interest rates. Programmers never considered such a scenario, and thus failed to code the system accordingly. So users get an error message when they attempt to force negative bond yields …

[The following is excerpted from a Foreword by Jeff Deist to our upcoming hardcover version of Henry Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt was indeed a self-taught economist, but first and foremost he was a journalist. As a result, everything Hazlitt wrote exhibits great clarity and economy of words– making him the perfect choice for lay readers …

The remarkable life of Ron Paul began in Pittsburgh 84 years ago today, in 1935—seven months after Elvis Aaron Presley came into the world. We wish him a very happy birthday, and many more years of health and productivity.
It’s a rare person who peaks later in life, but Dr. Paul manages to do just that. Anyone who meets him notices his energy, his distate for waiting or standing still, honed by decades as a doctor. In his eighties he is exceedingly fit, riding his bike, walking, tending his garden, and frequently hosting family and guests at his home. His daily Liberty Report, live on YouTube, provides an excellent outlet for his pro-peace message without the constraints (and tedious travel) of Congress.
Born into the teeth of

The remarkable life of Ron Paul began in Pittsburgh 84 years ago today, in 1935—seven months after Elvis Aaron Presley came into the world. We wish him a very happy birthday, and many more years of health and productivity.  It’s a rare person who peaks later in life, but Dr. Paul manages to do just that. …

The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politicsby Michael MaliceAll Points Books/St. Martin’s Press 2019307 pagesThis review appears in forthcoming September/October issue of The Austrian Conservatism, Michael Malice famously remarks, is progressivism driving the speed limit. Malice’s latest book, aptly titled The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics, documents a movement …

Yoram Hazony’s recent “National Conservatism” conference attracted controversy, some of it deserved. Arch interventionist and National Security Advisor John Bolton was one featured speaker, injuring the gathering’s promise of a shifting foreign policy consensus on the Right. Tucker Carlson, by contrast, capably promoted an “America First” policy of military restraint—restraint that runs directly counter to Bolton’s grandiose …

Pipeline Observer Magazine recently interviewed Jeff Deist on the subject of tribal land and sovereignty in North America. Interview by Clayton Reeder, originally published in May 2019.
Pipeline Observer: The Ludwig von Mises institute in Alabama is the world’s most popular free market think tank, promoting the “Austrian School” of economics.
Writing on the website mises.org, Jeff Deist recently added a novel perspective to the endless debate about fair treatment of Indigenous people in North America.
Deist proposed addressing the “stolen land” issue by abandoning the reservation system and ceding vast tracts of federal land to Indigenous tribes and giving them complete sovereignty. This would create “nations within a nation.”

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Readers of a certain generation will remember the seminal 1980s rock band X, featured in Penelope Spheeris’s great documentary The Decline of Western Civilization.  Punk and alternative bands in the Tipper Gore era struggled to get record deals, radio airplay, or even hire venues for gigs at …

Austrians will be vindicated, but will they be heard? Original Article: “Austrian Economics is No Longer the Unheard Music”

Does Carlson honestly think Republican members of Congress are overly theoretical and ideological? And here we thought they were a bunch of unprincipled and poorly-read hacks!Original Article: “Tucker Carlson’s Broadside Against Austrian Economics”

I recently saw the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, an account by English soldiers of their experiences in the Great War of 1914-1918. Culled from hundreds of hours of colorized actual wartime footage, it’s a beautiful and heart wrenching film. It’s also a superb antiwar film, simply through its graphic and accurate depiction of mass death and casualties across blood-soaked European battlefields.
Refreshingly, the film relies solely on audio transcripts from about 200 English soldiers who fought in World War I. There is no script, and no narration. The viewer simply hears the gravelly, aged voices of the soldiers themselves, never identified by name or rank. They are anonymous, but judging by the towns from which they hailed

I recently saw the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, an account by English soldiers of their experiences in the Great War of 1914-1918. Culled from hundreds of hours of colorized actual wartime footage, it’s a beautiful and heart wrenching film. It’s also a superb antiwar film, simply through its graphic and accurate depiction of mass …