Spoken Mises

David Frum is on the warpath. In a National Review Online blog post, then an NPR commentary, and most recently in a National Post article, Frum has mercilessly ridiculed the gold standard. But as with most modern critiques of the "bad old days" of the laissez-faire 19th century, Frum's analysis is fraught with theoretical and historical problems. Frum's main objection is that the gold standard is allegedly rigid, preventing the economy from smoothly adjusting to various shocks. Although Frum naturally doesn't say it explicitly, the only "cushion" that unbacked fiat money can provide is that it allows politicians to literally paper over crises, limping along from one to the next. Rather than having strong growth punctuated by acute — but quick — adjustments to new information, instead we have monotonous, sluggish growth.

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David Frum on the Gold Standard (2.14 MB)

Introduction Menger's Work in the German Context Methodenstreit The Austrian School and the Gossen School The Breakthrough of the Austrian School Notes --> The problems and ideas that moved Ludwig von Mises in his early years, writes Jorg Guido Hulsmann, were addressed by the work of four great economic theorists: Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, and Joseph Schumpeter. He knew all four personally, but Menger had retired from teaching a year before Mises discovered Menger's Principles. They met for the first time around 1910…

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Carl Menger: Pioneer of "Empirical Theory" (16.31 MB)

A sign of our time is the split-personality of the conservatives, wrote Rothbard in 1954. Many to the right of center are off on a schizophrenic pursuit of both liberty and collectivism. In domestic affairs this regrettable condition is gradually being recognized for what it is. But the time is nigh for conservative foreign policy, as well, to be psychoanalyzed in hope of a cure! Conservatives call for free trade and free enterprise, yet also clamor for absolute embargoes on trade with Communist nations. Have they forgotten that both parties to free exchange benefit from trade? For our government or any others to prohibit trade is a vicious example of socialistic policy; it injures the Communist countries to be sure; it also injures us.

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The Real Aggressor (4.45 MB)

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Study Guide to Human Action, Chapter XVIII (4.67 MB)

The work cumbersomely entitled, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, now commonly abbreviated as "The General Theory," was published in 1936. Probably no other book has ever produced in so little time a comparable effect, writes Garet Garrett. It has tinctured, modified, and conditioned economic thinking in the whole world. Upon it has been founded a new economic church, completely furnished with all the properties proper to a church, such as a revelation of its own, a rigid doctrine, a symbolic language, a propaganda, a priestcraft, and a demonology. The revelation, although brilliantly written, was nevertheless obscure and hard to read, but where one might have expected this fact to hinder the spread of the doctrine, it had a contrary result and served the ends of publicity by giving rise to schools of exegesis and to controversies that were interminable because nothing could be settled. There was no existing state of society in which the theory could be either proved or disproved by demonstration — nor is there one yet.

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The Church of Keynes (1.71 MB)

On January 24 a strange transaction will take place. At least $4.6 billion dollars will change hands between one or more firms and the FCC. The likely payoff is estimated to be somewhere between $10 and $30 billion. Up for grabs is the government-granted monopoly for "beach front" radio frequencies, which are being ceded over from analog transmission for digital use (channels 52–69). Tim Swanson asks: where does all of that money go? In terms of revenue generation, the FCC is second only perhaps to the IRS in extracting wealth from citizens and businesses.

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The Spectrum Swindle (4.89 MB)

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Protectionism and My Stuffy Nose (1.02 MB)

Christmas is a make-or-break time for many retailers, and the holiday season's importance to the American economy is so great that "Black Friday" sales at some retailers, particularly Wal-Mart, are reported as a macroeconomic indicator. The holiday season is indeed festive and inspiring even in spite of clichd paeans against the "commercialism" of Christmas. But, asks Art Carden, does the Christmastime "bacchanalia of peace on Earth and goodwill towards men" promote economic growth or not?

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Christmas and Consumption (1.31 MB)

A common complaint of anticorporate libertarians and self-described anarchists is that corporations are creatures of the state. The limited-liability feature of the corporate form, they claim, and the ability of corporations to raise large amounts of capital are state-granted privileges. Two important replies to such claims must make their way into cultural awareness: (1) we need corporations if we want any decent standard of living; and (2) these corporate powers would exist without the state.

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The Corporate Form, Limited Liability, and the State (1.60 MB)

In 1947, historian Charles Beard told Harry Elmer Barnes that the foreign policy of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman could best be described by the phrase "perpetual war for perpetual peace." Barnes used the phrase as the title of his 1953 collection of essays by the leading revisionist historians of the era. This article is excerpted from the final chapter.

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Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (13.74 MB)