7.2. Economics Versus Planning and Totalitarianism
The main issues of present-day politics are purely economic and cannot be understood without a grasp of economic theory.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Introduction to Bureaucracy
The introduction to Mises's 1944 Bureaucracy. Nobody doubts that bureaucracy is thoroughly bad and that it should not exist in a perfect world.
2.1. Bureaucracy Under Despotic Government
The first virtue of a government administrator is to abide by the codes and decrees. He becomes a bureaucrat.
3.1. The Impractiability of Government All-round Control
The very idea of central planning by the state is self-contradictory.
4.4. Unlimited Dependence on the Discretion of Government Bureaus
In the bureaucratic environment the entrepreneur must resort to two means: diplomacy and bribery.
6.5. The Vanishing of the Critical Sense
The capitalist variety of competition is to outdo other people on the market through offering better and cheaper goods. The bureaucratic variety consists in intrigues at the "courts" of those in power.
1.3. Management Under the Profit System
The profit motive drives entrepreneurs to serve the consumers.
4.2. Interference with the Height of Profit
The virtue of the profit system is that it puts on improvements a premium high enough to act as an incentive to take high risks.
5.3. The Bureaucrat as a Voter
The bureaucrat is not only a government employee. He is also his own employer.
6.3. Authoritarian Guardianship and Progress
In social life, rigidity amounts to petrification and death.
7.3. The Plain Citizen Versus the Professional Propaganist of Bureaucratization
The conflict between capitalism and totalitarianism—on the outcome of which the fate of civilization depends—is a war of ideas.
1.1. The Operation of the Market Mechanism
The capitalists, the enterprisers, and the farmers are instrumental in the conduct of economic affairs, but the captain is the consumer.
2.2. Bureaucracy Within a Democracy
Government interference with American business and with citizens' affairs results in bureaucratic management, instead of profit management.
3.2. Public Enterprise within a Market Economy
As soon as an undertaking is no longer operated under the profit motive, other principles must be adopted for the conduct of its affairs.
5.1. The Philosophy of Bureaucratism
The State is the only institution entitled to apply coercion and compulsion and to inflict harm upon individuals.
Chapter 4. The Meaning of Competition
Chapter 4 of Hayek for the 21st Century: Essays in Political Economy Audiobook.
How Inflation Destroys Civilization
Fiat inflation leaves a characteristic cultural and spiritual stain on human society. Guido Hülsmann takes a closer look at some aspects of this legacy.
Axis of Evil: America’s Three Worst Presidents
Lincoln, FDR, and Wilson were by far America’s worst presidents.
