Economics

Monetary Fallacies and Inflationary Bubbles

by Richard M. Ebeling May 14, 2018

Looking to the next few years ahead, is America and the world going to continue riding a wave of economic growth, improving standards of living, falling and lower unemployment, and technological changes that will continue to raise the quality and variety of life? Or will this turn out to be, at least partly, an artificial economic boom that will ...

Reasons for Anti-Capitalism: Ignorance, Arrogance, and Envy

by Richard M. Ebeling April 2, 2018

Why is the free enterprise or capitalist economic system so widely disliked, hated and opposed? Given the success of the competitive market economy to “deliver the goods,” it presents something of a paradox. An economic system that has either radically reduced or even in some instances virtually eliminated poverty, that has created widely available opportunities for personal, social and ...

Mises the Man and His Monetary Policy Ideas Based on His “Lost Papers”

by Richard M. Ebeling March 26, 2018

One day in 1927 Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, stood at the window of his office at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, and looked out over the Ringstrasse (the main grand boulevard that encircles the center of Vienna). He said to his young friend and former student, Fritz Machlup, “Maybe grass will grow there, because our civilization will end.” ...

Freedom and the Minimum Wage

by Richard M. Ebeling February 12, 2018

Most of us both value and take for granted the ability to make decisions about our own lives. When busybodies put their noses and their mouths into our personal affairs, we often say or at least think, “Mind your own business.” Unfortunately, we live in a world in which too frequently government won’t leave us alone, and instead, very ...

The Libertarian Angle: Democracy and Capitalism (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation February 6, 2018

What is the difference between a democratic system and a capitalist system? FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling hash it out. Go to the podcast.

Pinochet’s Chicago Boys versus Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2018

Ever since the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power in 1973, American and Chilean conservatives have extolled the economic policies that the Pinochet regime brought to Chile. The policies, which conservatives have long described as “free-market,” originated within a group of Chilean economists known as the Chicago Boys, who accepted governmental positions in ...

The Libertarian Angle: Free Trade and Minimum Wage

by Future of Freedom Foundation January 30, 2018

How does free trade benefit mankind? How does it affect liberty? FFF president Jacob Hornberger, Richard Ebeling, and special guest and George Mason University economist Donald J. Boudreaux hash it out. Go to the podcast.

Capitalism and How Expectations Coordinate Markets

by Richard M. Ebeling January 2, 2018

Open, competitive markets have a resilient capacity to successfully coordinate the actions of, now, billions of people around the world. With an amazing adaptability to changing circumstances, the actions and reactions of multitudes of suppliers and demanders are brought into balance with each other. Yet, none of this requires government planning, regulation or directing control. But how does this ...

America’s Great Depression and Austrian Business Cycle Theory

by Richard M. Ebeling December 18, 2017

When Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression first appeared in print in 1963, the economics profession was still completely dominated by the Keynesian Revolution that began in the 1930s. Rothbard, instead, employed the “Austrian” approach to money and the business cycle to explain the causes for the Great Depression, and to analyze the misguided and counterproductive policies that were followed ...

Capitalism and Competition

by Richard M. Ebeling November 13, 2017

Market competition is at the heart of the capitalist system. It serves as the driving force for creative innovation, the mechanism by which market supplies and demands are brought into coordinated balance for multitudes of goods, and an institutional setting for individuals to freely find their own place to best earn a living in society. Yet, listening to the critics ...

The Libertarian Angle: Consumer Sovereignty and the Free Market

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 3, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss the benefits of the free market. Go to the podcast.

A Bad Attack on Libertarian Economics

by George Leef October 1, 2017

Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality by James Kwak (Pantheon Books, 2017; 237 pages) There is a nasty genre of writing: books and articles that seek to build the case for socialism and interventionist government policies by smearing those of us who oppose them. That approach appeals greatly to Progressives who think that they are virtuous and their ...