Mises Media

Governments take valuable things like paper and minerals, stamp something on them, and call them money, in the process rendering these things almost worthless. Something is wrong with this picture.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/cost-money-coinage-fiat-power-and-quiet-corruption-value

Both progressives and conservatives show a complete unwillingness or inability to distinguish between those who got rich by genuinely creating value by serving others and those who are getting rich by expropriating wealth through force.

Read the article here: https://mises.org/mises-wire/progressives-and-conservatives-are-wrong-about-taxing-rich

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray's 100th birthday—and we're celebrating by giving away free copies of Anatomy of the State through May 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/gabfreebook

Be sure to follow the Guns and Butter podcast at https://Mises.org/GB

In this article from 1950, Murray Rothbard suggests some of the less bad ways of financing military operations. Hint: monetary inflation and taxing savings and investment are among the worst.

Original article: https://mises.org/articles-interest/economics-war

Karl Marx not only misunderstood value and production, but he also was wrong about large-scale and small-scale property owners.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/marx-was-wrong-about-necessary-ruin-small-landed-property

Who would join a radical minority movement, and commit him- or herself for life to social obloquy and a marginal existence, for the sake of 20% more bathtubs, or 15% more candy bars? Who will man the barricades either physically or spiritually, for more peanuts or Pepsi?

Original article: https://mises.org/articles-interest/duty-natural-outlaws-shut

The recent death of Paul Ehrlich reminds us that his crackpot overpopulation theories still are with us, even as they are being regularly discredited.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/depopulation-wont-save-us-or-planet

Ryan McMaken argues that the American constitutional structure has become a suicide pact: states cannot secede, cannot protect themselves from neighboring states' policies, cannot adopt genuinely federal internal governance, and cannot redraw their own borders. It's a system that guarantees growing conflict and provides only one approved solution: more centralized power in Washington.

Recorded in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

Murray Rothbard argues that the nation-state's boundaries—invariably acquired by force—deserve no more sanctity than any other product of conquest. He proposes radical decentralization through secession, down to the neighborhood level, as the path to genuine nations formed by consent rather than coercion.

In this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan McMaken looks at Rothbard's essay "Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation State." The essay provides some key insights into the nature of the nation-state, its origins, and implications for modern-day topics like immigration, citizenship, and national borders. 

Be sure to follow Radio Rothbard at https://Mises.org/RadioRothbard

Radio Rothbard mugs are available at the Mises Store. Get yours at https://Mises.org/RothMug PROMO CODE: RothPod for 20% off

The hypothesis of this essay is that Human Action—particularly the first few hundred pages—was instrumental to the new way of economic thinking that emerged with the new Chicago School, the Public Choice School, price theory, economic imperialism, general equilibrium analysis, and, ironically, the rise of economic formalism. Because the reader is "forced" to "test" and accept all the steps in Mises's argument introspectively, a basis of agreement is established. This unconscious agreement might not be recognized by the reader or might be recognized as nothing more than mere common sense. However, this acceptance by the reader is a fo...

Mises's response, addressing subsidies more generally, is instructive: "A project P is unprofitable when and because consumers prefer the satisfaction expected from the realization of some other projects to the satisfaction expected from the realization of P. The realization of P would withdraw capital and labor from the realization of some other projects for which the demand of the consumers is more urgent. The layman and the pseudo-economist fail to recognize this fact. They stubbornly refuse to notice the scarcity of the factors of production."

Chapter 13 from The Influence and Significance of Human Action After 75 Years. 

Human Action is indispensable for comprehending the operation and consequences of interventionism, which is the least understood economic system. The treatise is the culmination of Mises's long-standing research program, which was to analyze and compare the three possible economic systems—capitalism, socialism, and interventionism—from the viewpoint of which best promotes social cooperation under the division of labor. Almost all contemporary progressives have embraced interventionism as the true path to socialist bliss.

Hoxie visited New York, and asked Johnson to come to his hotel for the evening. Hoxie "was frightening in his appearance." He told Johnson that he was finished. "I can see now, all my work has been bunk. All my writing, every lecture I have ever given, has been bunk." When asked for the reason, Hoxie continued, "I've come to see through Veblen. How could a man be so great a scientist and such a damn fool?" Hoxie concluded that "Veblen knew his equations didn't solve, but he used them just the same." Johnson closes his narrative by writing "...

Individuals' time preferences determine the societal rate of interest, which Mises calls the "originary interest" rate. The rate of interest found in the loanable funds market is commonly believed to be the fundamental interest rate. But the loanable funds market only "adjusts the rate of interest on loans to the rate of originary interest." Lower time preferences are expressed through a decrease in consumption spending, an increase in savings and investment, and a decline in the originary interest rate, while higher time preferences cause the opposite.

Mises says, "Life itself is exposed to many risks. At any moment it is endangered by disastrous accidents which cannot be controlled, or at least not sufficiently. Every man banks on good luck. He counts upon not being struck by lightning and not being bitten by a viper." The social engineer attempts to bring about a desired outcome by forcing people to behave in a certain way. Mises sees the engineer and the social engineer as having parallel tasks: one manipulates lumber and iron, the other attempts to manipulate human beings.

All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference. Out of the political economy of the classical school emerges the general theory of human action, praxeology.

Alchian began his seminar by reading a paragraph. It was a paragraph about property, and he asked if anyone in the group could identify it. I was the only one; I recognized immediately that that was from Mises' Human Action. As he developed that first lecture—which became I think one of the most important economic articles of the twentieth century, "Economics of Property Rights"—it was like a light bulb went off in my head, it was incredible. All of a sudden, everything that I had done intellectually for thirteen years came together, with this one idea of Alch...

I thought that before turning to the present-day literature, it would be helpful to take a look at the state of monetary thought at the outset of World War I, in order to appreciate the progress that had been achieved since then. I opened the book at Christmas of 1992 and was in for a great surprise. This old master excelled in clarity of expression, and he had dealt with a subject of immense importance—the nature, causes, and consequences of the subjective value of money. From my previous studies I knew that this topic had not made it into th...

While he was never mentioned in West German economic textbooks, his name figured prominently in Commie East Germany. In one of these textbooks, you could also find some detailed criticisms of Western, so-called bourgeois economics and economists, among them Friedman and Hayek, but in particular also Mises, who was singled out as the most wrongheaded, dangerous, and detestable of them all.

Keynesian macroeconomics had displaced Austrian business cycle theory and solidly established itself as mainstream macroeconomics. Meanwhile, most of the economics profession sided against the Austrian School in the socialist calculation debate. By the 1940s, the Austrian School was left behind as economic theory developed. Those who were identified as associated with the Austrian School passed away or drifted toward the mainstream. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that by 1950, Mises was the only remaining active member of the old Austrian School.

The Misesian approach starts with the universal, realistic facts of human persons from which the logic of human action can be deduced. In moving from the logic of personal action to the logic of social interaction, praxeology inserts into economic theory the realistic empirical fact of the heterogeneity among (1) human persons; (2) natural resources, including land sites; and (3) capital goods. In contrast, mainstream economists employ a modeling approach. In the name of science, reliance on human judgment is to be expunged from economic analysis. This means formulating theory mathematically to avoid the ambiguities of verbal language, and statistical techniques supplant...

To understand Mises's position on ethics, it is essential to bear in mind that he is a psychological hedonist. He thinks everyone is always motivated by pleasure and pain, a view that comes straight from Epicurus. We seek pleasure and avoid pain. You might object that this is obviously false. Don't we do things very frequently like go on restrictive diets, exercise, study subjects that aren't fun, and so on? Mises's answer is that even though we are motivated by pleasure and pain, it doesn't follow that we are motivated by what will give us the most pleasure, or...

This, of course, is great news for the Austrian School, where anyone in the world can do what Gordon Tullock did and become his own economist by reading Human Action! The University of Michigan students who spontaneously began chanting when Ron Paul showed up there in 2012 to campaign for the Republican nomination were not chanting "Game theory! Game theory!" They were chanting "End the Fed! End the Fed!" because they had read some of the works of Austrian economists.

In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises transforms the law of comparative advantage from a tool used to analyze international trade questions to a tool used at every level of trade. He renames it the "law of association." By applying the law of association to trade at every level (from individuals to general markets to international markets), Mises shows the necessity of free markets for human flourishing. The law of association may be the most difficult economic law to understand because sometimes it leads to counterintuitive conclusions. For example, if a person wants bread, it might be economically better for...

Human Action is more than a book about economics broadly construed. It is a guide to civilized social life which elucidates the laws of reality that apply if human persons are to engage in peaceful and prosperous social cooperation under the division of labor. For Mises, unlike most economists, economics is not merely an "analytical toolbox" for grading alternative economic policies or economic systems as more or less practical or efficient. Rather, economics is a body of substantive truths about the institutional foundations of human society. Thus, what is at stake in formulating a well-founded and coherent structure of...

Mark Thornton opens this episode with a strategic assessment of the war's economic fallout: not the headlines, but the second- and third-order effects that are only now becoming visible. Oil production facilities across the Gulf have been destroyed, disrupted, or shut down, and restarting them is not a matter of flipping a switch. Some older wells will need to be redrilled entirely. Meanwhile, the disruption to fertilizer production threatens the next crop season and potentially longer-term food prices worldwide

Mark also provides a skyscraper curse update: the Jeddah Tower, once expected to reach record height in early 2027...

Bill Anderson offers a ground-level view of California's decline, arguing that the state's deep entanglement of government with water, energy, housing, and transportation has created a self-reinforcing system where every new crisis produces more regulation, more spending, and fewer productive citizens.

Recorded in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

To complain against the state’s actions, argues Hobbes, is to ultimately complain against yourself because you originally authorized the state through social contract and the state represents you!

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/hobbess-state-why-are-you-hitting-yourself

Connor O'Keeffe argues that California's wildfire crisis is not simply a climate story but a government failure story. The state has monopolized nearly all wilderness land, refused to manage it adequately, and then distorted insurance markets to push more people into high-risk fire zones, making fires both larger and more deadly than they would be under a private property regime with real liability.

Recorded in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

On this episode of Power & Market, Ryan, Tho, and Connor discuss the escalating battle over Congressional districts. As Republicans and Democrats engage in an arms race over gerrymandering, assisted by a new Supreme Court ruling over racial districts, is the facade of "representative democracy" finally slipping?

Entrepreneurship is a voluntary undertaking that causes change by providing value. No force, no threats, and no coercion are involved. It is market action fully in line with our libertarian ideals. And it provides alternatives, and produces variety.

Original article: https://mises.org/misesian/how-change-world-entrepreneurship-versus-politics

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray’s 100th birthday—and we’re celebrating by giving away free copies of Anatomy of the State through May 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/AudioFree

Chris Calton links California's housing crisis to three books published in the 1960s that spawned three ideological movements — the democratization of urban planning, the politicization of environmentalism, and the no-growth movement — each of which handed activists and bureaucrats new tools to block development and destroy private property rights one permit hearing at a time.

Recorded in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

Peter Klein traces the ideological transformation of the UC system from a world-class research institution to a cautionary tale of government-subsidized capture, arguing that the real culprit isn't California's culture but the funding, ownership, and governance structure that insulates universities from market accountability and rewards ideological conformity. 

Recorded in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

California has been seen as the nation’s “Promised Land” for many years, but in the past 25 years, people have left due to high housing costs and high taxes. The state’s future is about to become a lot worse, as socialists are rising in power here.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/where-california-went-wrong

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray’s 100th birthday—and we’re celebrating by giving away free copies of Anatomy of the State through May 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/AudioFree

Of course the president, like everyone, frequently protests his desire for peace. Everyone does this. And I think we may assume he is quite sincere about it.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-daily/president-goes-war

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray’s 100th birthday—and we’re celebrating by giving away free copies of Anatomy of the State through May 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/AudioFree

Antitrust populists claimed blocking the Spirit–JetBlue merger would protect competition and consumers. But their effort led to an intervention that strengthened the very oligopoly they set out to fight.

Read the article here: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-antitrust-populists-drove-spirit-airlines-out-business

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray's 100th birthday—and we're celebrating by giving away free copies of Anatomy of the State through May 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/gabfreebook

Be sure to follow the Guns and Butter podcast at https://Mises.org/GB

If executed perfectly, this swap allows the Fed to neutralize a shrinking money supply by swapping $2 trillion in mortgages for $2 trillion in government debt. 

Original article: https://mises.org/power-market/mbs-slope-n-swap

Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History more than 30 years ago, believing that the fall of the communist bloc would lead to a more peaceful world. We are still waiting for that moment of peace.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/fukuyama-was-wrong-history-did-not-end

The populist “victory” of the Trump administration is perhaps the best evidence yet that a strategy of “vote harder” is simply not going to lead to any significant change in the power of the regime.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/vote-harder-why-secession-only-answer-american-megastate

2026 is the Year of Rothbard—Murray's 100th birthday—and we're celebrating by giving away free copies of Anatomy of the State through May 31. Grab yours today at https://mises.org/AudioFree

Philosopher Matt Zwolinski has declared libertarianism to lack any coherent standards. Zwolinski’s confusion is the result of his rejection of libertarianism as outlined by Murray Rothbard and others based upon free markets based on individual rights.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/libertarianism-incoherent