All Posts Tagged With: "Austrian Economics"

The Dangers of the Myth of Merit

In his various chapters and essays on the “mirage” of the concept “social justice,” F. A. Hayek makes a claim that is very often overlooked by those who support the market. He argues that markets generally do not reward “merit.” That is, the people who become wealthy in the marketplace do not do [...]

19Nov2009 | Steven Horwitz | 5 comments | Continued

Human Action, 1949: A Dramatic Episode in Intellectual History

A great book, it has been remarked, is like a great castle. It can be viewed from many different angles, each offering a unique perspective. Viewing Ludwig von Mises’s monumental work from the vantage of 2009 permits one to see with great clarity one fascinating aspect of the book–the sheer drama of its emergence at [...]

19Aug2009 | Israel M. Kirzner | 3 comments | Continued

Human Action: The 60th Anniversary

We are celebrating the 60th anniversary of a great book, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, by a learned man and a clear thinker: the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. It presents Mises’s understanding–after long years of study and thought–of how the market economy functions. It is a major contribution to human knowledge.
Interventionist ideas dominated [...]

19Aug2009 | Bettina Bien Greaves | 2 comments | Continued

Human Action: The Treatise in Economics

“Next week we will discuss the master’s work.” So stated Dr. Hans Sennholz to close his graduate seminar during my junior year at Grove City College. I had owned a copy of Human Action since my freshman year, but the book was too daunting for me to really study it. I preferred to read Henry [...]

19Aug2009 | Peter J. Boettke | 0 comments | Continued

A Triple Whammy for Austrian Economics

They say that when economic times are good businesses can get away with sloppy practices. In the intellectual world, however, it seems that sloppy thinking prevails in desperate times and important distinctions get thrown out the window.
A good example of this appeared recently in a March 4 New York Times article titled “Ivory Tower [...]

19Aug2009 | Sanford Ikeda | 2 comments | Continued

Mainstream Macro in an Austrian Nutshell

While the events that have unfolded over the past year have required some outside-the-box theorizing by mainstream macroeconomists, the econo-mists of the Austrian school can offer a straightforward, fill-in-the-blanks explanation by drawing on the theory first articulated by Ludwig von Mises and then developed by Friedrich A. Hayek.

24Apr2009 | Roger W. Garrison | 10 comments | Continued

What We Believe

The Foundation for Economic Education, publisher of this magazine since 1956, is now in its seventh decade, and I am now in my seventh month as its president. As we expand the outreach of our programs and publications, now is a good time to remind our readers who we are and what we believe in.
FEE’s [...]

2Mar2009 | Lawrence W. Reed | 6 comments | Continued

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 [...]

1Jun2008 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued

Hans 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 [...]

1Jun2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued

Milton 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 | Continued

Book Reviews – December 2006

  • The Ethics of the Market
    by John Meadowcroft Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
  • Peddling Panaceas: Popular Economists _in the New Deal Era
    by Gary Dean Best Reviewed by Burton Folsom, Jr
  • Philosophers of Capitalism: _Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond
    by Edward W. Younkins Reviewed by Aeon J. Skoble
  • Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in _Black America
    by John McWhorter Reviewed by George C. Leef
1Dec2006 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, one of the most important and influential public intellectuals of the twentieth century, died last April, a few days shy of her ninetieth birthday. The intellectual legacy she left for social theorists is as significant as that of anyone else of her generation.
She was the author of nine books, including The Economy of [...]

1Sep2006 | Sandy Ikeda | 0 comments | Continued

Ludwig von Mises: The Political Economist of Liberty, Part 1

Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
Over a professional career that spanned almost three-quarters of the twentieth century, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was without any exaggeration one of the leading and most important defenders of economic liberty. The ideas of individual freedom, the market economy, and limited government that he defended in the [...]

1May2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued

Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom

The revival of the modern Austrian school of economics may be said to have begun 30 years ago, during the week of June 15–22, 1974, when the Institute for Humane Studies sponsored a conference on Austrian economics for about 40 participants in the small town of South Royalton, Vermont.
In 1974 the Austrian school had been [...]

1Jun2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued

Econ 101: An Austrian Economist’s Dream

Arthur Foulkes is a freelance writer in Indiana.
On the first day in an economics class the instructor tells us that “resources are scarce,” but human “wants are unlimited”—hence the eternal “economic problem.” How do we know resources are scarce? We can observe this fact with our senses; we can see that nothing is available in [...]

1Jan2004 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 0 comments | Continued

University Economics versus Austrian Economics

Arthur Foulkes is a freelance writer in Indiana.
Some time ago my wife asked me to define economics for her.
“Ah,” I said, sensing an opportunity to sound intelligent. There was long silence. I sat up, cleared my throat, and said “Ah” again.
Truth was I wasn’t sure how to answer her. Of course, I could have spouted [...]

1Feb2003 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 0 comments | Continued

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: A Sesquicentennial Appreciation

Richard Ebeling (Richard.Ebeling@hillsdale.edu) is Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics and chairman of the economics department at Hillsdale College.
In January 1914 there appeared three articles in one of the leading newspapers in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, world-renowned member of the Austrian school of economics and a three-time minister of finance. He warned [...]

1Feb2001 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued