Mises Media

Liberalism applied to world affairs: national self-determination, free trade and freedom of movement as the foundations of peace, and critiques of nationalism, imperialism, and colonialism.

The economic case for private property and the free market, including the impracticability of socialism, the failures of interventionism, and the problems of cartels, monopoly, and bureaucracy.

Mises defines liberalism as a program for material welfare grounded in reason, ties it to capitalism, and examines the psychological roots of antiliberal resentment.

The first principles of liberal politics—private property, freedom, peace, and equality before the law—with a critique of the doctrine of force, fascism, and the proper limits of government.

Ludwig von Mises’s preface to the English edition: what classical liberalism is, why its program rests on private property, and how “liberal” came to mean nearly its opposite in America.

Tom Woods frames Ludwig von Mises's book around a single question—when the state may legitimately initiate force—and the classical liberal’s insistence on a very high threshold for it.

Guido Hülsmann examines the interest rate through both economic analysis and moral theology—tracing the debate from Aristotle through Aquinas and Heinrich Pesch to the Austrian School. His conclusion overturns the traditional doctrine: interest income from voluntary lending is intrinsically just and good, both for the contracting parties and for society as a whole, because it funds the division of labor in finance, strengthens social bonds between savers and borrowers, fuels economic growth through longer production processes, and creates a natural saturation mechanism that prevents capital accumulation from becoming an end in itself.

However—and this is the essay's most important turn—the legitimacy of interest income is corrupted when it arises through unjust institutions, particularly the fiat money system. Central banks override the natural saturation of capital accumulation, inflate credit markets beyond any limit that would exist under sound money, and redistribute income from the poor to those closest to money creation. The scholastics were wrong to condemn all interest as usury. But the income generated by today's monetary system—artificial, coerced, and redistributive—is precisely the institutionalized usury that Bernard Dempsey warned about in 1943.

Read the original article: https://mises.org/articles-interest/economics-and-ethics-interest-rates

Contrary to a common—and incorrect—critique of Rothbard, he was not a fanciful purist who refused to support any political movement that failed to be perfectly libertarian in every way. 

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-rothbard-sided-american-revolutionaries

In the wake of Alan Greenspan's recent passing, Bob revisits two contested claims about his legacy: did the Fed under Greenspan fuel the housing bubble, and did that bubble cause the 2008 financial crisis? 

Related:

• Bob's Article from October, 2007, "The Worst Recession in 25 years?": Mises.org/HAP557a
• Peter Schiff was Right (2006-2007 Edition): Mises.org/HAP557b
• Mark Thornton, 2004, "Housing: Too Good to Be True": Mises.org/HAP557c
• Bob's 2008 Article, "The Importance of Capital Theory": Mises.org/HAP557d
• The Charts Shown in this Episode: Mises.org/HAP557e

Most readers are familiar with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They are less familiar with the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/consolidating-federal-power-under-civil-rights-act-1957