Mises Daily

Network science matters because even something seemingly as simple as a price for a good emerges from the plans and actions of a multitude of individuals, writes Gene Callahan.

It is a common error: the tendency to inflate the ability of government to shape the world according to its liking. Politicians and their critics both are guilty of this. In truth, government cannot outsmart the market, and it is far less powerful than the laws of economics and the buying and selling decisions of consumers and entrepreneurs. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., explains how and why this is so, and what it means for our future.

There are many available definitions of the money stock: M1, M2, M3, MZM, and a host of others. Frank Shostak says that it actually does matter which one we use.

Before the Fed blessed this country with unlimited liquidity, American history saw two previous attempts at creating a centralized institution of money and credit: the First and Second Banks of the United States. Both generated financial havoc, and were rightly opposed by the champions of freedom and sound money. Historian Scott Trask explains.

No, there are no economic agencies in this country like Gosplan, but the U.S. Government, as well as many state and local governments, engage in central economic planning all the same. As Bill Anderson tells us, in the end, it is still central economic planning and, not surprisingly, it does not work any better here than it did in the U.S.S.R.

The exchange rate is a measure of the relative value of these two currencies, not the value of the dollar or the euro per se. Perhaps the value of dollar and the euro have risen lately but the euro a bit more. Richard Johnsson believes that both have lost in value since mid-2001, only the euro has lost less than the dollar.

The Republicans have done it again. With their new Medicare bill, they've made goverment even bigger. James Ostrowski writes that the Republicans have been expanding the size, scope and power of government ever since they first got their mitts on power in 1861.

Modern arguments for tariffs smack of the same old mercantilist arguments that have been refuted by economists going back to Adam Smith.

The current international monetary system is based on floating fiat currencies and is constantly subject to unsustainable distortions. This much has been known to Austrians for some time, and Robert Blumen provides the background from Bretton Woods to the current day. Awareness of the problem is now starting to spread to mainstream economists, as suggested by Richard Duncan's new book. He tells the story of how the dollar unsupported by gold has gotten led the world into a terrible mess.

In a wide-ranging interview Sudha Shenoy comments on her decision to become an economist, the influence of Rothbard and Kirzner, the politics of Hayek, current trends in global trade, US protectionism, the bad turn in economic theorizing, and the need to resolve the conflict between Islam and the West.