Economics

Philip Wicksteed on the Common Sense of Choice and the Market Process

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2023

The British economist Philip H. Wicksteed began his most important work, The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910), with a motto taken from the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): “We all live it, but few of us know what we are living.” Contrary to the classical economists, who had argued that the market value of things was ...

The Life and Significance of F. A. Hayek

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2023

Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950 by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, (University of Chicago Press, 2022) People who knew Friedrich A. Hayek before he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 sometimes said that he went through bouts of depression that interrupted his research and writing. Some also said that he could be aloof and distant when ...

Lionel Robbins on the Logic of Choice and a Liberal International Order

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2023

It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that British economist Lionel Robbins (1898–1984) was one of the most influential economists of the last hundred years without most economists, nowadays, being aware of it. This is all because of a relatively short book that he published over 90 years ago, An Essay on the Nature and ...

Now That Inflation Is Back, Here’s the Book to Read

by George Leef August 1, 2022

Inflation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and How to Fix It by Steve Forbes, Nathan Lewis, and Elizabeth Ames (Encounter Books, 2022). We have been through this many times before — prices start to increase at an accelerating pace and consumers grumble about inflation, while politicians try to pin the blame for it on parties other than ...

The Centenary of Ludwig von Mises’s Critique of Socialism

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2022

At a banquet dinner held in New York City on March 7, 1956, honoring the famous Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, another equally renowned member of the Austrian school of economics, Friedrich A. Hayek, delivered a talk highlighting the important contributions of his long-time mentor and close friend, going back to when they first met in the Vienna of ...

Political Paternalism, Not Free Markets, Cause Economic Shocks

by Richard M. Ebeling April 29, 2022

One of the political paternalist tricks is to insist that any economic policy failure is more “proof” of the bankruptcy of the market economy. Once again, this worn-out device is employed by Columbia University professor and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. Any and all such presumed market “failures” are placed by Stiglitz under the umbrella term, “neoliberalism.” Neoliberalism has ...

Can Capitalism Survive? 80 Years After Schumpeter’s Answer

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2022

Eighty years ago, in the midst of the Second World War, Austrian-born economist Joseph A. Schumpeter published one of his most famous books, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942). A central question that he asked and tried to answer was, “Can Capitalism Survive?” His basic conclusion was, “No, I do not think it can” (p. 61). He was (forlornly) confident ...

Ludwig von Mises’s Free Market Agenda for a Postwar Ukraine

by Richard M. Ebeling March 14, 2022

Our television screens and social media sites are filled with the images of death and destruction as the Russian army continues its devastating advance into Ukraine. How long this will go on, and with what human and material costs is still not known. But for the Ukrainian people and their country’s economy, the world is, truly, being turned upside ...

Inflation Nation

by Scott McPherson January 12, 2022

Almost a year ago, Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary, warned that pumping trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy could have terrible consequences. He told Democrats that they were taking “substantial risks” in passing the so-called American Rescue Plan (ARP), possibly creating “inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” Summers was patronized and mocked ...

Carl Menger’s Free Market Advice to an Austrian Crown Prince

by Richard M. Ebeling December 15, 2021

Imagine that you could be the tutor to a future king. What lessons and advice would you offer for the economic policies he should follow when he assumed the throne? That is what Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian School of Economics, was able to do in a series of private lectures that he delivered to Crown Prince Rudolf, ...

Fight for $26

by Laurence M. Vance November 15, 2021

Some states hold elections for state and local offices in odd-numbered years, and this year was no exception. In addition, a total of 39 statewide ballot measures were certified for the 2021 ballot in nine states. Some localities had ballot measures as well, like Tucson, Arizona, where residents voted in favor of a $15 minimum wage ...

Predatory Pricing

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2021

Uncle Sam can’t seem to make up his mind about how to define predatory pricing. Charge too little for a good or a service and the federal government might term it predatory pricing. But charge too much for a good or a service and the federal government might term it predatory pricing. And here is a related ...