Mises Insitute

by Alice Salles In Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis defines his vision of what an improved social order would look like, using theological elements, historical misconceptions,1 and political philosophy to create what has beendubbed his “quasi-humanitarian” manifesto. But in an attempt to swim with today’s political current, Francis pushes a “re-envisaging [of] the social role of property,” going against what previous popes have written and completely ignoring sound economic teachings. As Dr. Samuel Gregg explained, Francis’s insensible treatment of economic questions has been an ever-present trait of his pontificate, making the claims in Fratelli tutti just a continuation of what Saint Peter’s 266th successor has written in previous...

by Pavel Mordasov Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, the United States has experienced one of the most unprecedented economic interventions in all of its history. Since March and April both the Federal Reserve and the US federal government have injected trillions into the economy in hopes of stabilizing it and reducing unemployment. At the expense of the public, both institutions have handicapped themselves for the future, and it will be extremely difficult to ever return to a “normalized” policy situation without triggering a larger economic crisis. On February 11, 2020, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell delivered a semiannual report wherein he laid out the present risks that both the Fed and the federal government face. Some of the risks addressed were low inter...

by Ryan McMaken It’s been clear for decades that national news organizations such as CNN and the New York Times tend to be biased in favor of social democracy (i.e., “progressivism”) and what we would generally call a “left-wing” ideology. Journalists, for instance, identify as Democrats in far higher numbers than any other partisan group. And political donations by members of the media overwhelmingly go to Democratic candidates. This is why even as far back as the 1940s, libertarian and conservative groups felt the need to found their own news sources, publishing houses, and other outlets for the distribution of information. Similarly, in recent decades, higher education faculty have been shown to be overwhelmingly in favor of the Democratic Party,&...

by Robert Aro With all the history, lore and media spotlight the Federal Reserve receives, how many people stopped to ask: What is the Fed’s purpose? According to their website’s FAQs, the Federal Reserve system exists to: provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. It aims to carry this out through free market intervention including: influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices. While the method of operations may leave some questioning the efficacy of its ability to reach its goals, it’s still much different than what San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly told the Wall Street Journal, in a one-on-one interview on Thursday: If you go back to our foref...

by Frank Shostak According to Milton Friedman, the key cause of the business cycles is the fluctuations in the growth rate of money supply. Friedman held that what is required for the elimination of these cycles is for central bank policymakers to aim at a fixed growth rate of money supply: My choice at the moment would be a legislated rule instructing the monetary authority to achieve a specified rate of growth in the stock of money. For this purpose, I would define the stock of money as including currency outside commercial banks plus all deposits of commercial banks. I would specify that the Reserve System should see to it that the total stock of money so defined rises month by month, and indeed, so far as possible, day by day, at an annual rate of X per cent, where X is some num...

by Jörg Guido Hülsmann The following thoughts have been presented on October 10, 2020, at a broader public conference in Germany. The conference was intended to discuss environmental policies from a free market perspective. Although my research does not concern this field, I have always been interested in the general theory of interventionism and therefore agreed to comment on climate change policy. Sometimes the fresh look of an outsider can be helpful. If my remarks spur further thought on climate change policy, they will have fulfilled their purpose. I have not written on anything related to environmentalism since the early 1990s. At the time, as a student at the Technical University of Berlin, I wrote an economics seminar paper that dealt with the problem of air pollution. How s...

by Ryan McMaken Last week, Dr. David Nabarro from the World Health Organization admitted that lockdowns have been devastating for much of the world, noting that “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.” Nabarro went on to list various examples of the economic damage done by lockdowns: Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition. Nabarro also reminded his audience that lockdowns won’t make covid-19 disappear, employing the lockdown rationale use...

by Ryan McMaken A Pew Research Center survey conducted in June finds that roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very (37%) or somewhat (36%) likely that social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints that they find objectionable. Just 25% believe this is not likely the case. At this point, of course, it’s hard to see how this is even debatable. While “censor” is perhaps not the most accurate term to use here—given the word’s connotations of state intervention—it is apparent that social media firms, at the very least, limit discussion and the reach of certain political viewpoints by banning certain users. These firms also openly admit to biasing readers against certain content through the use of “fact checkers.” Anecdotal evidence also stro...

by Antony P. Mueller The world is currently in the midst of a newly aggressive drive to bring about a new socialist order through a powerful and "efficient" technocratic state. This new order has been labeled as "progressive," but it is merely the latest version of the socialist impulse which we have seen before in the form of socialism and communism.  A War on Private Property Summed up in a single sentence, the plans of the communists aim at the abolition of private property. From there, the other major demands follow, such as abolishing the family, nation, and countries, and finally, as Marx noted, “communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality.” In as much as the program of liberalism “if condensed into a single word….is private own...

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. When it comes to Covid-19, bureaucrats and politicians keep moving the goalposts, changing the rules, and engaging in bait-and-switch tactics, so they can maintain the "new normal" dictatorship. Those who object, we're told, "just want people to die." It's now becoming clear that "you can't have your life back in some states unless you take it back." https://youtu.be/Xy3tP-BW5do Posted with permission from the Mises Institute.