Spoken Mises

The Mises Institute contributes to the betterment of society and the advancement of knowledge in two ways. First, it offers a wealth of scholarly resources. Second, it offers cogent, insightful commentary through its Daily Articles and the Mises Economics Blog. Let's examine these in greater detail.

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The Significance of Mises.org (748.00 KB)

At the outset of the American "experiment," the tax burden was light. Money was gold and silver. The definition of private property was clear and seemingly immutable, and the right to self-defense was sacrosanct. No standing army existed, and a firm commitment to free trade and a noninterventionist foreign policy appeared to be in place. Two hundred years later, matters have changed dramatically.

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On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution (14.38 MB)

The following attempts to explain the most important idea in the history of social analysis. The notion (a description of reality that is all around us but rarely noticed) has been around for centuries. It was first observed by ancients. It was described with rigor by late-medieval monks. It was given scientific precision in the classical period. It is the basis of advances in social theory in the 20th century.

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Cooperation: How a Free Market Benefits Everyone (2.26 MB)

Moderation is only good if it is moderating between two bad extremes and to a good mean, and not if it is moderating between a good and a bad. Advocating a "mixed economy" or a middle ground between socialism and capitalism is nothing more than advocating a middle ground between threatening your neighbor with violence if he doesn't do your will and not threatening him with violence. If he resists, it becomes the same as the "middle ground" between murdering and not murdering. In that sense, capitalism is an extreme, just as courage is an extreme against noncourage.

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Aristotle on Mixed Economies (1.53 MB)

In the wake of the recent flooding in Iowa, the state's attorney general has announced that Iowa's rules against price gouging are now in effect. These rules prohibit businesses from "substantially raising the prices for needed goods or services without justification" in the wake of a natural disaster. Enforcing these restrictions will have predictable effects: shortages of needed supplies, long lines, delayed repairs, and, perhaps, increased incivility. Like other forms of price control, price-gouging statutes will hurt precisely the people they are intended to help.

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Price Controls Create Man-Made Disasters (1.34 MB)

Anyone familiar with modern politics knows that Republicans and Democrats regularly vie with each other to see who can be more economically illiterate. But it seems that with some newly proposed legislation, Democrats are determined to take the lead and cripple the US oil industry permanently.

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The Oil Follies (2.25 MB)

What Time's "fix" involves is essentially the Sweden-ization of America, where the average working family would be handing over 65–70 percent of its earnings to government bureaucrats, with regulation-induced price increases eating up perhaps another ten percentage points. This all needs to be done at the very beginning of the next administration, moreover, for "putting off change won't be an option much longer." It is a perfect recipe for impoverishing America.

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TIME for Socialism (1,005.00 KB)

What Time's "fix" involves is essentially the Sweden-ization of America, where the average working family would be handing over 65–70 percent of its earnings to government bureaucrats, with regulation-induced price increases eating up perhaps another ten percentage points. This all needs to be done at the very beginning of the next administration, moreover, for "putting off change won't be an option much longer." It is a perfect recipe for impoverishing America.

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TIME for Socialism (996.00 KB)

Albert Jay Nock wrote, "The only element in Judean society that was particularly worth bothering about was the Remnant. Isaiah seems finally to have got it through his head that if anything substantial were ever to be done in Judea, the Remnant would have to do it. This is a very striking and suggestive idea; but before going on to explore it, we need to be quite clear about our terms. What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?"

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Isaiah's Job (5.48 MB)

Why be libertarian, anyway? By this we mean, what's the point of the whole thing? Why engage in a deep and lifelong commitment to the principle and the goal of individual liberty? For such a commitment, in our largely unfree world, means inevitably a radical disagreement with, and alienation from, the status quo, an alienation which equally inevitably imposes many sacrifices in money and prestige. When life is short and the moment of victory far in the future, why go through all this?

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Why Be Libertarian? (2.54 MB)