Audio Mises Wire

While people claim they want the "virtuous" state with citizens to match, what we really get is realpolitik, whether we want it or not.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/evolution-politics-civic-virtue-realpolitik

While we speak highly of “rule of law” and the “limited state,” the unfortunate truth is that the modern state is a law unto itself. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/predatory-logic-state

Murray Rothbard saw government as a predatory, criminal entity and the Microsoft lawsuit of 1998 proved to be a classic example of government organized crime in action.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbards-definition-government-organized-crime-microsoft-antitrust-case

To deny local self-determination to the Catholic Vendean rebels was to support the imperialist impulse, just as the opponents of the American revolutionaries embraced imperialism over freedom. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/vendee-french-war-national-liberation

World Cup tickets are a hot commodity with prices through the roof. Naturally, governments want to do what governments always do unsuccessfully: levy price controls.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/fifa-world-cup-price-controls-ticket-prices

The standard narrative is that policing and imprisonment are necessary tools to keep the public safe from criminals. But it also would seem that these things are useful tools for a state that wishes to dominate its citizens.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/foucault-panopticism-and-carceral-society-rise-surveillance-state

America’s elderly political class is only the most visible symptom. The deeper problem is a government built to transfer wealth from younger Americans to a caste of older, wealthier generations.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/americas-gerontocracy-goes-deeper-aging-politicians

If avoiding a repeat of the excesses of the French revolution is an important goal, we need a thorough understanding of its causes. Edmund Burke and his conservative followers don't offer this. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-french-revolution

Great Britain’s “Equality Act” is not simply a civil rights bill gone too far. It is, as Murray Rothbard would have put it, a “monstrous” piece of legislation that looks to create a social and economic equality that could never exist.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/uks-monstrous-equality-act

Since abandoning socialism 30 years ago, Poland’s economy has grown, as one would expect with a market economy. However, there could be more economic freedom there that easily would translate into a booming economy.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/poland-now-its-still-paper-tiger

Lolcows, part of the world of internet personalities, would seem well beyond the world of economic analysis. Yet, much of what happens can be explained by the paradigm of Austrian economics.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/austrian-perspective-lolcows

Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian School of economics, served as the tutor for Austrian-Hungary’s Crown Prince Rudolf, the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph. But Rudolph’s untimely death in 1889 would end up changing the ruling dynamics of pre-World War I Central Europe.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/carl-menger-crown-prince-rudolf-and-marginal-revolution-never-was

Austrian economics does not share the same methodology as we see in the economics mainstream. The Austrian emphasis on praxeology provides a better explanation of economic events than does the mathematically-bound mainstream.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/praxeology-within-physics-social-sciences

While Adam Smith is celebrated in some circles as the “Father of Free-Market Economics” (Austrians would disagree), his writings on the “disadvantages” of the worker are misleading.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-adam-smith-helped-create-modern-unionism

As AI becomes a more important and visible part of our lives, the movement to regulate it also grows. The standard regulation narratives—that government regulates things in the name of the public interest—clearly do not fit the facts.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/cronyism-and-regulatory-capture

Every July 4th, politicians climb podiums, flags wave, a hundred million dollars’ worth of fireworks scatter across the sky, and somewhere between the hot dogs and the stadium-rock anthems, it becomes easy to confuse the theater of freedom with the substance of it.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/fireworks-regime-what-july-4th-actually-celebrates

The media tells us that the rape allegations that brought down Graham Platner’s Senate campaign just came to light. Actually, the media had those allegations for months, but sat on them to protect Platner’s campaign.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/senate-isnt-his-oyster-after-all-graham-platners-socialist-vessel-turned-out-be-leaky

"The main aim of American foreign policy is to impose the will of our ruling elite on the rest of the world." Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/war-system

Contrary to a common—and incorrect—critique of Rothbard, he was not a fanciful purist who refused to support any political movement that failed to be perfectly libertarian in every way. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-rothbard-sided-american-revolutionaries

Most readers are familiar with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They are less familiar with the 1957 Civil Rights Act.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/consolidating-federal-power-under-civil-rights-act-1957

Some people seem to think the Constitution of 1787 is pretty much the same thing as the Declaration of Independence. They're wrong.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/dont-confuse-declaration-independence-constitution

This decision—as with birthright citizenship in general—will increase political conflict over the presence of foreign nationals—both legal and illegal—within the United States.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/birthright-citizenship-ruling-will-create-more-conflict-over-immigration

Money did originate from the state, no matter how many times contemporary monetary theorists might claim otherwise.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/backwards-history-money

With its new ruling in Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court demonstrates it does not understand central banking or the Fed. Clarence Thomas, however, saw through the Fed's lies. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/supreme-court-and-supreme-fed

It is important to change our political culture, which treats "democracy," or the "right" to vote, as the supreme political good.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/libertarian-critique-birthright-citizenship

While Bitcoin in its early days promised freedom from the tyranny of fiat currency, those days are gone. Instead, Bitcoin owners are now satisfied if its value goes up against the dollar.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/bitcoin-not-freedom-delusion-digital-escape

Comparing Sanders to fascism may seem unusual, but it should not be forgotten that the main leaders of Italian fascism, including Mussolini, were initially socialists before they became fascists.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-bernie-sanderss-ai-bill-fascistic-and-dangerous

What role does the Constitution play when one state has a different understanding of “American values” than another? Unfortunately, the responses have been inconsistent, depending upon which “values” one wishes to promote.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/calhouns-answer-abolition-petitions

Mainstream economists claim that understanding and observing reality is not really “doing economics.” Instead, they believe that all we need are abstract theories that predict events well. But over time, financial markets must bend to the real world.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/state-financial-markets-tells-us-what-investors-really-believe

While the pundits are insisting that the late Alan Greenspan was a committed free market adherent, his actions throughout his career spoke differently. In today’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon exposes Greenspan for what he was: an opportunist.Original article: https://mises.org/friday-philosophy/greenspan-great-opportunist

Were stronger central government under the Articles of Confederation and a central bank really necessary to win the American Revolution, as conservative nationalists of the era claimed?Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-nationalist-victory-articles-confederation-and-bank-north-america

The common belief is that intellectual property rights must be in place, otherwise, entrepreneurs would be reluctant to face uncertain profitability. Well, entrepreneurs already face uncertainty and act, anyway.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/intellectual-property-versus-unrealized

Democratic Socialists are winning election after election and will have a number of representatives in Congress. What will happen to our society as they continue to gain power? The answers are not encouraging.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/democratic-socialists-one-vote-one-time

The intellectual path from Ancient Greece to modernity is littered with the path of numerous philosophers, movements, and events, both peaceful and violent that have shaped thinking throughout the ages.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/scholasticism-enlightenment-liberalism

Modern historians rarely have told the truth about the history of capitalism, and especially in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. It is time to set the record straight.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/lies-damn-lies-and-history-capitalism

On the day Greenspan died, this 2001 essay by Joseph T. Salerno deserves a second life. It documented what the mainstream refused to see: that Greenspan replaced economic theory with intuition, replaced analysis with data-worship, and called his guesswork a science.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-daily/greenspans-empty-talk

As Ryan McMaken recently pointed out, the original constitutional republic created in 1787 no longer exists. Joseph Solis-Mullen asked if the US is now in its Sixth Republic.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/sixth-republic

Systems do not collapse when they finally become unstable; they appear stable until the moment their failure can no longer be ignored.Original article: https://mises.org/power-market/why-stable-systems-fail-illusion-institutional-control

While China’s economy has boomed, many people wrongly associate that success with the Chinese government’s industrial policies. Intervention has created many problems there—just as it has done elsewhere.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/chinas-industrial-policy-ambition-inefficiency-and-cautionary-tale-america

Among the key men involved in the American Revolution and the following periods, we find an oft-repeated concern that may seem foreign to us today—the threat of standing armies. This reality became concrete in the Newburgh conspiracy in 1783.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/american-revolution-and-danger-standing-armies

While Graham Platner has become controversial because of his reckless past and violent behavior, the real objection to his being elected a US Senator should be to his reckless socialist proposals that would have disastrous consequences.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/oppose-graham-platner-his-socialism-not-just-his-outrageous-behavior

Names for historical periods like "Renaissance" and "Enlightenment" did not descend to us out of the heavens. Historians and propagandists of centuries past created these names, often for political purposes. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/middle-ages-enlightenment-and-propaganda

Because government monetary authorities have been interfering with interest rates for decades, investors have no more confidence in the bond markets, as they expect more interference and more unpredictability.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/bond-market-sell-welcome-titanic-effect

Before the Nat Turner Rebellion and the rise of militant abolitionism in the North, there were more anti-slavery societies in the South than in the northern states.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/abolitionist-movement-antebellum-south

Egalitarian interpreters of the Declaration not only empower the centralized state but promote a view of “equality” that shares a common ethical error with slavery itself—that legal castes of humans may be created and enforced against the liberty of others.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/declaration-independence-versus-egalitarianism

Not surprisingly, the present government is rapidly politicizing artificial intelligence. We don’t have to look far for disastrous results.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/ai-creative-destruction-and-politicization-economic-change

The covid lockdowns were useless for public health, but they vastly strengthened government’s stranglehold over our lives. We cannot allow this to happen again.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/potential-lockdowns-polarization-and-what-should-be-done

Despite attempts to whitewash its past, progressivism was a poisonous ideology from the beginning. One of its worst legacies is eugenics, which not only created social strife in the US, but also was exported to Germany, where the Nazis embraced it.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/how-american-progressives-influenced-hitler

Contrary to the myth that kings routinely ruled over cowed subordinates by "divine right" in the Middle Ages, civil governments of the period faced countless institutional obstacles to the exercise of power.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/medieval-europeans-paved-way-freedom-west

As AI continues to grow, we are told to fear private transactions and to depend on the state for safety and security. The reality is that we need to fear the state and what it will do to us as technology becomes increasingly sophisticated.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/were-freaking-doomed-without-freedom-state-rule