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
Last week the Fed announced that, retroactive to May 2020, its M1 money stock measure would include savings deposits, which were reclassified as transaction accounts similar to other deposit components of M1 such as demand deposits and other checkable deposits (i.e., NOW accounts and ATS accounts). Previously, savings deposits were considered to
[This is Joseph Salerno’s preface to the new Chinese version of Money: Sound and Unsound published by the Shangai People’s Publishing House.] In the introduction to this book, first published in English in 2010, I wrote: “The idea of sound money was present from the very beginning of modern monetary theory in the works of the sixteenth-century
The Venezuelan government recently lopped off six zeros from its hyperinflating currency, the bolivar. The highest denomination currency note of 1 million bolivars, worth less than $0.25 , was replaced by a one-bolivar note. At the same time, a hundred-bolivar note, worth about $25.00, was introduced as the new highest denomination of the
On March 2, 1966, Murray N. Rothbard, the founder and twenty-year editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies , would have celebrated his seventieth birthday. This issue of the JLS , as well as a simultaneously appearing special issue of its sister publication, the Review of Austrian Economics , likewise founded and edited by Rothbard, is a
The outstanding merit of Brian Doherty’s book is that it contains a treasure trove of valuable information regarding the events, personalities, periodicals and organizations whose complex interplay influenced the intellectual and institutional development of the modern American libertarian movement. But its merit also becomes its defect in the
For Mises, liberalism first emerged and expressed itself in the nineteenth century as a political movement in the form of “peaceful nationalism.” Its two fundamental principles were freedom or, more concretely, “the right of self-determination of peoples” and national unity or the “nationality principle.” The two principles were indissolubly
The historical embodiment of monetary freedom is the gold standard. The era of its greatest flourishing was not coincidentally the 19th century, the century in which classical liberal ideology reigned, a century of unprecedented material progress and peaceful relations between nations. Unfortunately, the monetary freedom represented by the gold
Last week a student in my MBA-level intermediate-macro seminar raised a provocative question. We were discussing the various kinds of (price) deflation and which kinds, according to Austrians, are benign and accommodate consumer preferences, and which are malignant and conflict with consumer preferences. In view of the Austrian emphasis on
William H. Hutt’s outstanding accomplishment is his pathbreaking reconstruction of the macroeconomic analysis of price and resource allocation, the long-established core of neoclassical economics. He demonstrates its indisputable and abiding relevance to the macroeconomic problems of inflation, unemployment, and depression. In the course of this
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.