Economic success requires recognition, not evasion, of the fact that the principle of cause and effect applies just as inexorably in financial policy as it does in the scientist’s lab. Only when we reestablish acceptance of this idea can we hope to reverse course and return to the road of long term prosperity.
Economics
Tax Cuts and the “Trickle Down” Economics Straw Man
Among the suggestions being made for getting the American economy moving up again is a reduction in the capital gains tax. But any such suggestion makes people on the left go ballistic. It is "trickle down" economics, they cry. Liberals claim that those who favor tax...
The Fundamental Obstacles to Economic Recovery: Marxism and Keynesianism
While the influence of Marxism stands directly in the path of a fall in wage rates and prices, by blocking its way with laws and threats, Keynesianism aims to prevent any attempt to overcome these obstacles by allegedly demonstrating the futility and harm of doing so.
Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government “Stimulus Packages”
The blind rush into massive “stimulus packages” is the culmination of generations of economic ignorance transmitted from professor to student in the guise of advanced, revolutionary thinking—the “Keynesian revolution.”
Upside Down Economics
From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the...
Falling Prices Are the Antidote to Deflation
A disastrous economic confusion is the belief that falling prices constitute deflation and thus must be feared and, if possible, prevented.
Teaching Economics
Many professors, mostly on the liberal side of the political spectrum, use their classrooms to proselytize students. I have taught economics for the past 40 years and challenge anyone to find even one student, among the thousands who went through my classes, who can...
Planned Chaos: The Alleged Inevitability of Socialism (Part 11 of 11)
Many people believe that the coming of totalitarianism is inevitable. The "wave of the future," they say, carries mankind inexorably toward a system under which all human affairs are managed by omnipotent dictators. It is useless to fight against the unfathomable...
Planned Chaos: The Teachings of Soviet Experience (Part 10 of 11)
Many people all over the world assert that the Soviet "experiment" has supplied conclusive evidence in favor of socialism and disproved all, or at least most, of the objections raised against it. The facts, they say, speak for themselves. It is no longer permissible...
Planned Chaos: Nazism (Part 9 of 11)
The philosophy of the Nazis, the German National Socialist Labor Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anticapitalistic and socialistic spirit of our age. Its essential ideas are not German or "Aryan" in origin, nor are they peculiar to...
Planned Chaos: Fascism (Part 8 of 11)
When the war broke out in 1914, the Italian socialist party was divided as to the policy to be adopted. One group clung to the rigid principles of Marxism. This war, they maintained, is a war of the capitalists. It is not seemly for the proletarians to side with...
Planned Chaos: The Liberation of the Demons (Part 7 of 11)
The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends. The sensational events which stir the...
Planned Chaos: Trotsky’s Heresy (Part 6 of 11)
The dictatorial doctrine as accepted by the Russian Bolshevists, the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis tacitly implies that there cannot arise any disagreement with regard to the question who shall be the dictator. The mystical forces directing the course of...
Planned Chaos: Russia’s Aggressiveness (Part 5 of 11)
The German, Italian and Japanese nationalists justified their aggressive policies by their lack of Lebensraum. Their countries are comparatively overpopulated. They are poorly endowed by nature and depend on the import of foodstuffs and raw materials from abroad. They...
Planned Chaos: Socialism and Communism (Part 4 of 11)
In the terminology of Marx and Engels the words communism and socialism are synonymous. They are alternately applied without any distinction between them. The same was true for the practice of all Marxian groups and sects until 1917. The political parties of Marxism...
Planned Chaos: The Dictatorial, Anti-Democratic and Socialist Character of Interventionism (Part 3 of 11)
Many advocates of interventionism are bewildered when one tells them that in recommending interventionism they themselves are fostering anti-democratic and dictatorial tendencies and the establishment of totalitarian socialism. They protest that they are sincere...
Planned Chaos: The Failure of Interventionism (Part 2 of 11)
NOTHING is more unpopular today than the free market economy, i.e., capitalism. Everything that is considered unsatisfactory in present-day conditions is charged to capitalism. The atheists make capitalism responsible for the survival of Christianity. But the papal...
Planned Chaos: Introduction (Part 1 of 11)
The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties are eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise. It is an almost unchallenged dogma that capitalism...
The Myth That Deregulation and Laissez Faire Capitalism Was Responsible for The Subprime Crisis
The news media are in the process of creating a great new historical myth. This is the myth that our present financial crisis is the result of economic freedom and laissez-faire capitalism.
The Alleged Absence of Depressions Under Totalitarian Management
Many socialist authors emphasize that the recurrence of economic crises and business depressions is a phenomenon inherent in the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, they say, a socialist system is safe against this evil. As has already become obvious and...
In Defense of the “Barbarous Relic”: Why The Enemies of Capitalism Smear The Gold Standard
Given the state of affairs created by the U.S. Central Banking system this classic on Free Banking and the Gold Standard by Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) is all the more relevant today . Excerpted from his book "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics"...
Monetary Policy and the Return to Sound Money
Excerpted from Chapter 23, Part IV of Mises classic The Theory of Money and Credit (1912).The people of all countries agree that the present state of monetary affairs is unsatisfactory and that a change is highly desirable. However, ideas about the kind of reform...
The Economics of College, Part III
Why does college cost so much? There are two basic reasons. The first is that people will pay what the colleges charge. The second is that there is little incentive for colleges to reduce the tuition they charge. Those who want the government to provide subsidies to...
The Economics of College, Part II
Those who argue that the taxpayers should be forced to subsidize people who go to colleges and universities seldom bother to think beyond the notion that education is a Good Thing. Some education is not only a good thing but a great thing. But, like most good things,...
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