Economics

Beyond GDP to a New Road to Serfdom

by Richard M. Ebeling December 14, 2018

It is a commonplace that there is more to life than money and the material benefits that it may provide someone. We often make trade-offs between income-earning work opportunities and more time with family or friends, or between risky but well-paying employment and a calmer and less stressful job that does not pay as well. We might decide whether ...

The Libertarian Angle: Ebeling’s Favorite Authors: Henry Hazlitt

by Future of Freedom Foundation November 28, 2018

Richard Ebeling is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. He became a libertarian while still in high school and has been involved in the libertarian movement for many decades. Who did he look up to? What books have influenced him the most? Richard and FFF president Jacob Hornberger ...

The Libertarian Angle: Ebeling’s Favorite Authors: Friedrich von Hayek (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 10, 2018

Richard Ebeling is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. He became a libertarian while still in high school and has been involved in the libertarian movement for many decades. Who did he look up to? What books have influenced him the most? Richard and FFF president Jacob Hornberger ...

Quinn Slobodian and the Academic Attack on Mises and Hayek

by Richard M. Ebeling October 8, 2018

We are living in a world of the anti-liberal counter-attack against individual liberty, free markets and limited government. Prominent voices for the free society in the 20th century, like the Austrian economists, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek, are among the targets that opponents of free market liberalism are taking aim. In doing so, the anti-liberals distort the facts ...

The Bad Economics of Short-Run Policies

by Richard M. Ebeling October 4, 2018

Bad economics can bring about or grow out of bad politics. But the question is, what are bad economics and bad politics? Unless this is clearly and correctly identified, a bad situation can be made worse, and a good situation can be turned into a bad one. So sorting this out is crucial to having a free and prosperous ...

The Libertarian Angle: Ebeling’s Favorite Authors: Ludwig von Mises

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 2, 2018

Richard Ebeling is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. He became a libertarian while still in high school and has been involved in the libertarian movement for many decades. Who did he look up to? What books have influenced him the most? Richard and FFF president Jacob Hornberger ...

The Rise of Capitalism and the Dignity of Labor

by Richard M. Ebeling September 27, 2018

The market, or capitalist, economic system has transformed the material world in wondrous ways over the last 200 years. Poverty, once the natural condition of virtually all of humanity, is being lifted from people’s shoulders, not only in the Western world but also increasingly around the globe. But the criticisms of free market liberalism continue, among them the idea ...

Economic Straight Talk: The Contributions of Ludwig von Mises

by Richard M. Ebeling September 17, 2018

Economic Straight Talk unmasks the economic fallacies behind many government policies, and explains the benefits from economic freedom — greater individual liberty that increases people’s freedom of choice and widens the free market competition that makes a better world for all of us.

Macro Aggregates Hide the Real Market Processes at Work

by Richard M. Ebeling September 13, 2018

For the 12 months that ended in July 2018, price inflation in the United States, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was 2.9 percent. That is, a basket of goods that cost $100 in July 2017 increased in expense by almost $3 by July 2018. But is this sort of index really all that needs to be emphasized ...

Interest Rates Need to Tell the Truth

by Richard M. Ebeling August 30, 2018

In the middle of July 2018, President Donald Trump said in an interview that he was “not happy” with the Federal Reserve nudging up interest rates and threatening economic growth in the United States. At the recent Jackson Hole, Wyoming, meeting of global central bank leaders, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome (“Jay”) Powell, said the Fed board would continue ...

Economic Armaments and China’s Global Ambitions

by Richard M. Ebeling August 23, 2018

The world continues to move in potentially dangerous directions. A leading component of this threat is the use of economic armaments by governments to gain political and market advantages in their foreign relations with other countries. Among the leading participants in the use of such economic armaments is the government of China. First, what are “economic armaments”? In the 1930s, ...

Economic Straight Talk: Free Trade Is Best, Not Trade Retaliation

by Richard M. Ebeling August 3, 2018

Economic Straight Talk unmasks the economic fallacies behind many government policies, and explains the benefits from economic freedom — greater individual liberty that increases people’s freedom of choice and widens the free market competition that makes a better world for all of us.