Archive for Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was a long-time adviser to FEE and the author of Human Action along with many other pathbreaking books in Austrian economics, history, and social philosophy.
Ludwig von Mises: Economist, Philosopher, Prophet
Editor’s Note: September 29 is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig von Mises, the great Austrian economist, defender of classical liberalism, and adviser to FEE. Below is a selection of Mises’s writings published in The Freeman over the years. The Market It is customary to speak metaphorically of the automatic and anonymous forces [...]
24Aug2011 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Causes of War
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was the foremost Austrian economist of the twentieth century, an adviser to FEE from the time of its founding in 1946, and the author of Human Action, Socialism, and The Theory of Money and Credit. This is the major part of a lecture delivered in Orange County, California, in October 1944. [...]
1Apr2004 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedBusiness Under German Inflation
Paper money inflation and credit expansion never fall upon a people like an act of God. They are always the outcome of a deliberate policy. The governments and the parties in power take recourse to inflation because they consider it as a blessing or at least a minor evil when compared with the effects either [...]
1Nov2003 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedInequality of Wealth and Incomes
Editor’s Note: Last January the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a study decrying the growing income inequality in America and calling on government to rectify this alleged injustice. “The economic prosperity of the 1990s has not been shared equally, ‘” wrote the authors. There is no better response [...]
1Apr2000 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Foundations of Freedom
Professor Mises (1881-1973), one of the century’s pre-eminent economic thinkers, was academic adviser to the Foundation for Economic Education from 1946 until his death. This article first appeared in the April 1960 issue of The Freeman. Animals are driven by instinctive urges. They yield to the impulse which prevails at the moment [...]
1May1996 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedInequality of Wealth and Incomes
Professor Mises (1881-1973), one of the century’s pre-eminent economic thinkers, was academic adviser to The Foundation for Economic Education from 1946 until his death. This article first appeared in the May 1955 issue of Ideas on Liberty, published by FEE. The market economy—capitalism—is based on private ownership of the material means of production and private [...]
1Mar1996 | Ludwig von Mises | 1 comment | ContinuedPerspective: The Power of Paternalism
Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And [...]
1Jun1994 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedPerspective: Ideas
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. —Ludwig von Mises Money and Education Study after study has found little link between per-student [...]
1Feb1993 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Objectives of Economic Education
Editors’ note: Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was a pre-eminent exponent of free market economics during his long and distinguished academic career. He was associated with The Foundation for Economic Education as a consultant and part-time staff member from shortly after FEE was founded in 1946 until his death. These extracts from a 1948 memorandum to [...]
1Apr1991 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedWage Earners and Employers
Q. “Are the interests of the American wage earners in conflict with those of their employers, or are the two in agreement?” A. To answer that question we must first look at a little history. In the pre-capitalistic ages, a nation’s social order and economic system were based upon the military superiority of an elite. [...]
1May1988 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Market and the State
For every species of animal and plant the means of subsistence are limited. Hence every living being’s vital interests are implacably opposed to those of all members of its own species. Only human beings know how to overcome this irreconcilable nature-given conflict by embarking upon cooperation. The higher productivity of work performed under the principle [...]
1Jan1986 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedA Page on Freedom: Number 17
The Individual in Society Seen from the point of view of the individual, society is the great means for the attainment of all his ends. The preservation of society is an essential condition of any plans an individual may want to realize by any action whatever. Even the refractory delinquent who fails to adjust his [...]
1Mar1985 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedWar
Our age is full of conflicts which generate war. However, these conflicts do not spring from the operation of the unhampered market society. It is not capitalism that produces them, but precisely the anticapitalist policies designed to check the functioning of capitalism. They are an outgrowth of the various governments’ interference with business, of trade [...]
1Sep1981 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedWages
Wages are the price paid for the wage earner’s achievement, i.e., for the contribution of his efforts to the processing of the good concerned or, as people say, for the value which his services add to the value of the materials. No matter whether there are time wages or piecework wages, the employer always buys [...]
1Sep1981 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedValue
Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. Different people and the same people at different times value the same objective facts in a different way. Valuation can only arrange goods in scales of preference. It [...]
1Sep1981 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | ContinuedUnemployment
The worker looks upon unemployment as an evil. He would like to avoid it provided the sacrifice is not too grievous. He chooses between employment and unemployment in the same way in which he proceeds in all other actions and choices: he weighs the pros and cons. If he chooses unemployment this unemployment is a [...]
1Sep1981 | Ludwig von Mises | 2 comments | ContinuedUnderdeveloped Nations
The fact that the standard of living of the average American worker is incomparably more satisfactory than that of the average Hindu worker, that in the United States hours of work are shorter and children sent to school and not to the factories, is not an achievement of the government and the laws of the [...]
1Sep1981 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | Continued-
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