The link between the transatlantic slave trade and industrial growth in Britain is a recurring theme in public discussions. There is a widespread assumption that the profitability of the slave trade requires Britain to compensate the descendants of Africans, since slavery helped to enrich some institutions. It is true that the slave trade made profits, but its contribution to the economy was marginal. Technological change rather than the slave trade was the force...
Read More »How the Policy of Price Stability Generates Greater Economic Instability
Many mainstream economists believe that economic stability refers to an absence of excessive fluctuations in the overall economy. An economy with constant output growth and low and stable price inflation is likely to be regarded as stable, while an economy with frequent boom-bust cycles and variable price inflation would be seen as unstable. According to popular thinking a stable economic environment with stable price inflation and stable output growth acts as a...
Read More »What Will Germans Do without Russian Gas?
Ryan and Tho talk with Mises.org author and German native Rosanna Weber about the energy crisis in Germany. German policymakers have greatly worsened the ongoing energy crisis in Germany by abandoning nuclear energy and taking a hard line on Russian natural gas. Now with the damage done to the Nord Stream pipeline, German consumers face even fewer options as winter approaches. Rosanna Weber is a graduate student in Economic History at the London School of Economics...
Read More »From the Publisher September–October 2022
Who frames the “climate” debate in this country? Or any political debate, for that matter? We all know the answer. Left progressives have mastered the emotive art of posing supposedly good intentions as actual arguments. They enjoy a childlike state of suspended disbelief that allows them to insist reality can be legislated. Being progressive increasingly means never accepting responsibility for the plainly foreseeable consequences of your proposed policies. How...
Read More »Cryptocurrency as Money—Store of Value or Medium of Exchange?
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts generally have a great appreciation for the Austrian school of economics. This is understandable since Austrian economists have always argued for the merit of privately produced money outside government control. Unfortunately, an erroneous understanding of the development and functions of money has emerged and become increasingly dominant among at least some proponents of bitcoin—a narrative that is at odds with the basics of Austrian...
Read More »History Repeats Itself: Abandoning Sound Money Leads to Tyranny and Ruin
Money is one of the most misunderstood topics of our time, and we’re seeing the implications of this play out every day. To understand money, one first must first understand that human beings have always been incentivized to participate in exchange. If humans could not, or did not, trade, most people would die young from starvation, disease, or exposure to the elements. The survivors would be left with an extremely low standard of living in a world in which none of...
Read More »Should the Fed Increase the Money Supply in Response to a Growing Economy?
Most commentators believe a growing economy requires a growing money stock because economic growth gives rise to a greater demand for money, which then must be accommodated. Failing to do so will lead to a decline in prices of goods and services which, in turn, destabilizes the economy and leads to a recession or, even worse, depression. The main role of the Fed, then, is to keep the supply and the demand for money in equilibrium. An increase in the demand for money...
Read More »Debunking Fossil Fuel Hysteria: An Interview with Alex Epstein
Jeff Deist: Alex Epstein is our special guest this week. He runs the Center for Industrial Progress, was formerly at the Ayn Rand Institute, and has a background in philosophy. He wrote a famous book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and followed that up with a new book called Fossil Future. Alex, let me say this book is incredible. Thank you for writing it! I know from the acknowledgements it was quite a difficult task. Alex Epstein: I did the book on fossil...
Read More »How to Think about Economic Theory
[Chapter 2 of Per Bylund’s new book How to Think about the Economy: A Primer.] Like other sciences and fields of study, economics is a body of theory. Theory is a collection of explanations that allows us to understand something. Economic theory allows us to understand how an economy works. It explains the workings of the economy as a whole so that we can understand the meaning, impact, origins, and evolution of economic phenomena. For theory to be reliable and...
Read More »Seeing the Student Loan Crisis as a Form of Boom and Bust
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