Economics

Some Confusions of Language in Economic Thought

by Richard M. Ebeling July 24, 2018

Fifty years ago, in 1968, Austrian (and Austrian school) economist Friedrich A. Hayek published a monograph called The Confusion of Language in Political Thought. Hayek argued that the words we use and the meanings we give to them greatly influence how we think about the political system and the wider social order in which we live. ...

Economic Straight Talk: Trade Wars and the Balance of Trade Fallacy

by Richard M. Ebeling July 19, 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.

Tariff Walls and Trade Wars Equal Government Planning

by Richard M. Ebeling May 21, 2018

Trade wars are dangerous and harmful policies for governments to pursue. They hurt consumers due to higher prices and fewer alternatives; they reduce competitive opportunities for producers by restricting markets; and they narrow the benefits that come from a market-based system of division of labor in which each participant tends to devote his or her efforts to supplying the ...

Monetary Fallacies and Inflationary Bubbles

by Richard M. Ebeling May 14, 2018

Looking to the next few years ahead, is America and the world going to continue riding a wave of economic growth, improving standards of living, falling and lower unemployment, and technological changes that will continue to raise the quality and variety of life? Or will this turn out to be, at least partly, an artificial economic boom that will ...

Reasons for Anti-Capitalism: Ignorance, Arrogance, and Envy

by Richard M. Ebeling April 2, 2018

Why is the free enterprise or capitalist economic system so widely disliked, hated and opposed? Given the success of the competitive market economy to “deliver the goods,” it presents something of a paradox. An economic system that has either radically reduced or even in some instances virtually eliminated poverty, that has created widely available opportunities for personal, social and ...

Mises the Man and His Monetary Policy Ideas Based on His “Lost Papers”

by Richard M. Ebeling March 26, 2018

One day in 1927 Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, stood at the window of his office at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, and looked out over the Ringstrasse (the main grand boulevard that encircles the center of Vienna). He said to his young friend and former student, Fritz Machlup, “Maybe grass will grow there, because our civilization will end.” ...

Freedom and the Minimum Wage

by Richard M. Ebeling February 12, 2018

Most of us both value and take for granted the ability to make decisions about our own lives. When busybodies put their noses and their mouths into our personal affairs, we often say or at least think, “Mind your own business.” Unfortunately, we live in a world in which too frequently government won’t leave us alone, and instead, very ...

The Libertarian Angle: Democracy and Capitalism (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation February 6, 2018

What is the difference between a democratic system and a capitalist system? FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling hash it out. Go to the podcast.

Pinochet’s Chicago Boys versus Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2018

Ever since the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power in 1973, American and Chilean conservatives have extolled the economic policies that the Pinochet regime brought to Chile. The policies, which conservatives have long described as “free-market,” originated within a group of Chilean economists known as the Chicago Boys, who accepted governmental positions in ...

The Libertarian Angle: Free Trade and Minimum Wage

by Future of Freedom Foundation January 30, 2018

How does free trade benefit mankind? How does it affect liberty? FFF president Jacob Hornberger, Richard Ebeling, and special guest and George Mason University economist Donald J. Boudreaux hash it out. Go to the podcast.

Capitalism and How Expectations Coordinate Markets

by Richard M. Ebeling January 2, 2018

Open, competitive markets have a resilient capacity to successfully coordinate the actions of, now, billions of people around the world. With an amazing adaptability to changing circumstances, the actions and reactions of multitudes of suppliers and demanders are brought into balance with each other. Yet, none of this requires government planning, regulation or directing control. But how does this ...

America’s Great Depression and Austrian Business Cycle Theory

by Richard M. Ebeling December 18, 2017

When Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression first appeared in print in 1963, the economics profession was still completely dominated by the Keynesian Revolution that began in the 1930s. Rothbard, instead, employed the “Austrian” approach to money and the business cycle to explain the causes for the Great Depression, and to analyze the misguided and counterproductive policies that were followed ...