Böhm-Bawerk for the Citizen
Economics is often considered the dismal science. To the average person it appears dry and boring but this should not be the case. While economics is not as dismal as it is often portrayed, it is not something the average person must learn. As Murray... Read more
Protecting the Foundations of A Free Society
FEE was founded in 1946, yet the wheels began to spin even earlier. Today’s document is a letter from Leonard Read inviting Henry Hazlitt to a group discussion of what was to become FEE’s first publication, Fred Fairchild’s “Profits and the Ability... Read more
Bureaucracy: Hopeless From the Start
Incentives matter! This simple two-word sentence is the heart of Economics 101. Ask any economist, and she will tell you, “Yes, incentives do matter!” It also seems so simple and obvious when you stop and think about it. Sadly, as we start to think... Read more
Maybe Atlas Should Shrug
In today’s document, Roy A. Childs Jr. opens his review of Leonard Peikoff’s book The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America with: “When the history of the twentieth century is written, one thing will stand out above all others: the growth... Read more
The Point Is to Constrain
What is a constitution? The average person on the street will certainly know our country has one. But does she really know what it is for? A constitution is a set of rules meant to constrain the government from going beyond its stated purpose. Many claim... Read more
Socialist Theater 101
The consensus of economists today is that socialism generally doesn’t work. Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek are seen as the victors of the socialist calculation debate, which took place in the first half of the twentieth century. For the most part... Read more
The Academic Publisher’s Role?
Recently I discussed J.K. Galbraith’s review of Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action. In that review Galbraith took issue not only with Mises’s radicalism but also with the publishers’ plug on the book jacket. He chided Yale University Press for... Read more
The Best of the Free Man’s Library
Henry Hazlitt was not an economist by trade. He was, however, a very learned man who absorbed more economic knowledge than many professional economists do. And Hazlitt didn’t gain this knowledge by simply hanging around the likes of such brilliant individuals... Read more
Mises’s Naive View of the State?
Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action was published in 1949. The book has since gone on to great acclaim in classical liberal and libertarian circles. It influenced more than a generation of economists not only in the Austrian-school tradition but also from... Read more
Against the Zeitgeist
Today’s document is Albert Hunold’s address to the ninth meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Princeton, N.J., on September 8, 1958. It is titled “The Story of the Mont Pelerin Society.” Hunold, who cofounded MPS with F. A. Hayek, suggests... Read more
Getting the Protest Right
The anti-Wall Street protests, Occupy Wall Street, are picking up steam. Listening to the protesters, one can’t help but think: They are getting something right but oh so much wrong. They are right in the sense that there is something amiss. The elite... Read more
Beneficial Business
Recently a video of Elizabeth Warren has been circulating around the Internet. This quote has become particularly popular: There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear:... Read more
In Defense of Smugglers: The “Judicious Reformers”
Protectionism is one of the oldest fallacies economists have had to battle. The idea has its roots in mercantilist thinking. In its simplest form mercantilism states that wealth is money. Thus foreign trade is bad because imports cause wealth, that... Read more
The Importance of Economic Theory
We live in uncertain times. Yet even in these uncertain times it is extremely easy to find economists who are certain the free market has failed. Unsurprisingly, in the wake of the latest financial crisis these economists can be found almost anywhere,... Read more
Hazlitt Reviews Rothbard
Murray N. Rothbard’s treatise on economics, Man, Economy, and State, is one of the most important books to come out of the Austrian economics tradition. In today’s document, a review of Man, Economy of State in National Review, Henry Hazlitt states,... Read more
