Archive for Richard M. Ebeling
The Current Economic Crisis and the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle
Richard Ebeling is completing his tenure as the president of FEE. This fall he will teach economics at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
The current financial crisis emerged out of an economic boom that began in 2003 and saw rising stock values, increasing home prices, and high levels of employment and production. The upturn followed a [...]
Freedom and the Right of Self-Determination
Richard Ebeling (rebeling@fee.org) is the president of FEE.
The most guarded prerogative of every government is its legitimized monopoly over the use of force within its territorial jurisdiction. The second most important prerogative is its exclusive control over all its territory. By implication, governments therefore claim an exclusive right over the political, economic, and cultural destinies [...]
A Department of Homeland Happiness Security? Only if We Want to Be Unhappy!
Richard Ebeling (rebeling@fee.org) is the president of FEE.
It is more than 230 years since Adam Smith observed that each individual is a better judge of how best to apply his productive efforts than any statesman who would direct the economic activities of the citizenry. Furthermore, Smith said, any such power “would nowhere be so dangerous [...]
The Free Market versus the Interventionist State
During the first half of 1926, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises visited the United States on a three-month lecture tour. After his return to his native Austria, he delivered a talk on “Changes in American Economic Policy” at a meeting of the Vienna Industrial Club. He explained:
The United States has become great and rich under [...]
Marching to Bismarck’s Drummer: The Origins of the Modern Welfare State
Soviet socialism may now be a thing of the past, but there is one form of statism that still dominates the world, including the United States: the modern welfare state. Its tentacles of paternalistic control reach into every corner of personal and social life. It has made all of us “children of the state,” and [...]
1Dec2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Soviet Chamber of Horrors: Reminders on the Ninetieth Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution
In 1842 the German poet Heinrich Heine warned that “Communism, though little discussed now and loitering in the hidden garrets on miserable straw pallets, is the dark hero destined for a great, if temporary, role in the modern tragedy. . . . Wild, gloomy times are roaring toward us. . . . The future smells [...]
1Nov2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedMenagerie Of Happy Men: The Ancient Incas and the Bureaucratic State
Examples of bureaucratic control over social life seem to be as old as recorded history, and they always have features that are universal in their perverse effects regardless of time or place. The French economist and historian Louis Baudin described some of these consequences in his classic work, A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru [...]
1Sep2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Great French Inflation
Governments have an insatiable appetite for the wealth of their subjects. When governments find it impossible to continue raising taxes or borrowing funds, they have invariably turned to printing paper money to finance their growing expenditures. The resulting inflations have often undermined the social fabric, ruined the economy, and sometimes brought revolution and tyranny in [...]
1Jul2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedHans F. Sennholz: Champion of Freedom and Austrian Economics
Richard M. Ebeling is the president of FEE.
For more than half a century Austrian-school economist Hans F. Sennholz demonstrated that learning about the free market was not an exercise in the “dismal science.” An extremely popular public speaker and immensely prolific writer, Hans educated and persuaded thousands of people about the virtues of the free [...]
Freedom and the Role of Government
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
What is the role of government? This has been and remains the most fundamental question in all political discussions and debates. Its answer will determine the nature of the social order and how people will be expected and allowed to interact with one another—on the basis of either force [...]
Ending the Welfare State Through the Power of Private Action
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
Despair about the current direction of American public policy is easily understood. In whichever direction we look, government seems to be growing larger and more intrusive. For example, in February the Associated Press (AP) reported that in spite of the 1996 welfare reform, which has reduced the number of [...]
The Cost of the Federal Government in a Freer America
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
In February, President George W. Bush submitted his proposed federal budget for the fiscal year that begins in October. It called for total government spending of over $2.9 trillion. The administration and the Republicans in Congress insisted that this budget reflected fiscal responsibility and the promise of a return [...]
The Euro versus Currency Competition
It is now four years since the euro was introduced as a circulating currency in parts of the European Union. Both Europeans and others are becoming increasingly used to a single money in much of the continent. If the euro remains in use for another five or ten years people may well look back at [...]
1Jan2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedMilton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics
Milton Friedman, who passed away on November 16 at age 94, once commented that there is no such thing as different schools of economics; there is only good economics and bad economics. While he may have sincerely believed this, Friedman was nonetheless the twentieth century’s most outstanding contributor to what has become known as the [...]
1Dec2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedKeynesian Economics and Constitutional Government
Last month 650 economists called for an increase in the federal minimum wage, saying it was the responsibility of the government to “improve the well-being of low-wage workers” by mandating the terms under which people may be employed. Among these economists were five recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics. One of them was Lawrence [...]
1Nov2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedPrinciples Must Come Before Politics
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
We live in a time of quick fixes and patent medicines. The “physicians” offering to spoon-feed the elixirs for what ails us are the politicians running for office. Rarely do people step back and ask themselves whether there is really any ailment at all, or whether the politicians’ snake [...]
The Misplaced Acceptance of Political Leaders
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
This is an election year, and as in all past election years we are inundated with promises and proposals from candidates, each hoping to attract our votes. For the most part what they are promising is “leadership.” They tell us all the things they will do for us if [...]
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Book Reviews
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The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
