What binds the people of a truly free society together are a vision and an overriding value on the right of the individual to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property.
Richard M. Ebeling
Dr. Richard M. Ebeling is the recently appointed BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. He was formerly professor of Economics at Northwood University, president of The Foundation for Economic Education (2003–2008), was the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College (1988–2003) in Hillsdale, Michigan, and served as vice president of academic affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation (1989–2003).
The Free Market versus the Bureaucratic State
As Ludwig von Mises explained, an enterprise or activity is either guided by the pursuit of profit or it is not: Make profits by satisfying consumers better than the market supply-side rivals or meet the legislative mandate of the government bureau or agency by following the rules and procedures specified in your job description.
America’s National Debt Bomb Caused by the Welfare State
The Federal debt has now crossed the $19 trillion mark. When George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, Uncle Sam’s debt stood at $5 trillion. When President Bush left office in January of 2009, it had increased to $10 trillion. Now into seven years of Barack Obama’s presidency, the Federal debt has almost doubled again.
Carl Menger and the Foundations of Austrian Economics
Carl Menger is a towering figure, not only for the development of his variation on the “marginalist” theme, but for originating a still unique and distinct and highly relevant approach to economic and social analysis that still rightly bears the name, the “Austrian School.”
The World is Still a Slave To The Fallacies and Defunct Economics of John Maynard Keynes
Keynes helped undermine what had been three of the essential institutional ingredients of a free-market economy: the gold standard, balanced government budgets, and open competitive markets. In their place Keynes’s legacy has given us paper-money inflation, government deficit spending, and more political intervention throughout the market.
American Progressives are the Intellectual Grand Children of German Imperial Chancellor Bismarck
American “progressives” portray themselves as “forward-looking,” advocates of a higher and better freedom than the traditional American conception of liberty as freedom from government coercion and control. In fact, they are the intellectual great-grandchildren of the “reactionary” nineteenth century Imperial German “Iron Chancellor,” Otto von Bismarck.
Individual Rights and The Role of Government in Society
What is the role of government in society?
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Refuter of Marxism and Theorist on The Economics of Capitalism
Böhm-Bawerk is famous as one of the leading critics of Marxism and socialism in the years before the First World War. He is equally renowned as one of the developers of “marginal utility” theory as the basis of showing the logic and workings of the competitive market price system, and as the early formulator of the “Austrian” theory of capital and interest.
How Lithuania Helped Take Down The Soviet Union
The Lithuanians had been at the vanguard in the movement for freedom in the Soviet Union. They had elected a non-communist government in free elections, had declared their national independence from Soviet rule, and strongly affirmed their intention of reversing a half-century of socialist central planning through privatization and free market reforms.
Economist Joseph Schumpeter: Father of Capitalist “Creative Destruction”
Schumpeter is famous as a leading 20th century formulator of the notion of the entrepreneur as dynamic innovator of change, and also as a master of the history of economic ideas.
What is the Role of Government in Society?
Under a political regime of liberty, each individual gives purpose and moral compass to his own life.
Socialism as the Ideology of Death and Destruction
The attempt to establish a comprehensive socialist system in many parts of the world over the last one hundred years has been one of the cruelest and most brutal episodes in human history.
Individualism and Capitalism vs. Central Planning and Statism: The Political Battle of the 21st Century
If all of that dispersed and decentralized knowledge that exists in the individual minds of all the members of society is to be effectively used and brought to bear for mutual improvement of the human condition, each of us must be left free to use that knowledge as we, respectively, think best and most advantageous.
Imagine a World Where Obama Defends Capitalism and Free Markets
What would the State of the Union address be like if Obama had such an epiphany for defending individual liberty rather than more unrestricted government license over our lives?
Statism vs. Capitalism: Why Government Cannot Manage The Economy, Part II
The more complex the social and economic system the less any single or handful of human minds could comprehend, master or manipulate the relationships for better outcomes than when the market was left free.
Statism vs. Capitalism: Why Government Cannot Manage The Economy, Part I
The “knowledge of the world” is dispersed and divided up in the minds of all the members of society, with each knowing and understanding only a small part relative to all the knowledge that exists in everybody’s minds, combined.
Ending Government’s Monopoly Control Over Money
A central tool for governments to maintain their authority in society and their control over people’s lives is the ability to make the citizenry accept and use their monopoly medium of exchange.
Book Review: Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You about Economics
By taxing income, businesses, and estates, government siphons off part of the ability for people to do the work, savings, and investment out of which wealth, opportunities, and prosperity come.
Capitalism Supports Free Open Unions and Not Compulsory “Closed Shop” Ones
On the surface, labor unions make their appeal to society with rhetoric of claiming to want to better the conditions of all workers seeking gainful and income-enhancing employment. What is not as clearly seen are the indirect and usually unintended effects from compulsory unionism that end up keeping far too many in poverty and less remunerative jobs that the supporters of labor unions say they wish to help.
The Benevolence of Capitalism vs The Paternalism of the Welfare State
Before the arrival of modern welfare state, voluntary, private-sector institutions had evolved to serve as the market providers for many of those “social services” now viewed as the near-exclusive prerogative of the government. Unfortunately, after nearly a century of increasing political and cultural collectivism, the historical memory of the pre-welfare state era has all but been lost.
There Is No Social Security Santa Claus
Social Security is financial unsustainable and morally bankrupt.
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