Mises Institute

The refusal of the SCOTUS to consider the merits of a case concerning 2020 election laws is the sort of behavior that we have come to expect from spineless politicians, and that is what you find on America's highest court—politicians in robes. Original Article: " ACB's Betrayal of Trump Continues the Red Pilling of Conservative America​ " This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christo...

I first met Murray Rothbard when, as treasurer of the New Jersey Libertarian Party, I invited him to give the keynote address at our inaugural convention. He graciously agreed to do it for the paltry sum of $75 plus a puny chicken dinner. Prior to his talk, I introduced myself to him, and we spoke for a while about the state of the libertarian movement before I mentioned that I was a graduate s...

[These edited extracts, from an interview in the February 1973 issue of Reason magazine, first ran in the June 1999 issue of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report .] Q: Why, in your view, is isolationism an essential tenet of libertarian foreign policy? A: The libertarian position, generally, is to minimize state power as much as possible, down to zero, and isolationism is the full expression in foreign...

A gentleman who does work for us sent me a text recently saying the price of his supplies has increased 20 percent, so he wants to increase his monthly fee 10 percent. It was a nice way to ask, and I said sure, especially given that he’s willing to take a haircut on his labor to make the increase more palatable. Chairman Jerome Powell would be happy to hear this story, as the Federal Reserve pr...

This week we celebrate the life of Murray N. Rothbard, born on the second of March 1926, a Tuesday, in the Bronx. And what a Bronx it was, teeming with brilliant intellectuals, dedicated Communists, and rock-solid middle-class Americans like David and Rae Rothbard. The family would later become friendly with their apartment building neighbor in Manhattan, one Arthur F. Burns. Burns, an economis...

As mentioned on the Mises Wire this past June , the State of Colorado passed a broad set of police reforms, including removing qualified immunity protections for any police officer who "causes … the deprivation" of another person's rights under the Colorado Bill of Rights. Will this help improve police accountability? A recently filed lawsuit against the City of Aurora may help answer this ques...

In previous articles, I’ve discussed the Great Reset and introduced several ways of understanding the economics of it. The Great Reset can be thought of as neofeudalism , as “ corporate socialism ,” as “ capitalism with Chinese characteristics ,” and in terms of “ stakeholder capitalism” versus “neoliberalism .” In future installments, I intend to treat the technological (transhumanist) and mon...

Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness by Charles R. Kesler Encounter Books, 2021 xviii + 451 pp. Charles Kesler, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the Claremont Review of Books , has presented in this important new book a carefully conceived interpretation of the Constitution and, more generally, of what he call...

Bitcoin as a money is just very unremarkable. Yet this digital coin is well on its way to becoming one of financial history’s great epic stories. Its promotors just hit lucky in finding themselves in the midst of a monetary inflation whose virulence intensified during a great pandemic. Double luck: the greatest speculative narrative of the accompanying asset inflation has been about the miracle...

Normally we discuss books on The Human Action Podcast , but this new academic paper by Professor Philipp Bagus is too important to ignore. " COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria " is the one journal article you need to read this year. In only about ten pages it makes the devastating case that perverse political incentives—along with a nexus of state-connected media and scientists...

Since the days of Adam Smith , economists have sought a set of social institutions which permit “neither dominion, nor discrimination,” to use Nobel Prize–winning economist James Buchanan’s phrase. In this, economists are joined by all people of goodwill—including those in the Biden administration, which has enshrined equity and inclusion as cornerstones of how they’ll govern. What separates th...

Before 2020, there were growing signs of increasing economic prosperity for a wide variety of income groups in America. Whether or not this prosperity survives covid lockdowns and ever higher levels of government regulations remains to be seen. But in spite of increasingly reckless monetary and fiscal policy over the past decade, there were definite signs of ongoing progress. For example, a lan...

Our guest is Charlie Deist, author of Hormetics: Physical Fitness for Free People . We have an engaging and somewhat philosophical conversation on principles of health. How do we identify good nutritional and exercise habits? Amongst the myriad of fads, what rules should guide one’s health choices and behaviors? SHOW NOTES Charlie Deist: Website and Twitter Hormetics: Physical Fitness for Free ...

Murray Rothbard and other libertarians support self-ownership. Part of being a self-owner is that no one may physically harm your body without your consent, unless you first violate someone else’s rights. David Friedman raised a famous objection to this principle, and the problem has also been discussed by Walter Block. In his book The Machinery of Freedom , Friedman states the problem in this ...

A state's borders should change over time to reflect demographic and ideological realities. By denying this, political leaders are effectively saying that the rights of minority populations don't matter. Original Article: " Some Coloradoans Want to Break Off and Join Wyoming. They Should at Least Get to Vote On It. " This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated ...