Recent Podcast Episodes

Wanjiru Njoya appears on America At Night with Rich Valdés.

Ryan McMaken, Tho Bishop, and Zachary Yost discuss the theory of international realism and its application to the military actions of the Russian state in Ukraine and Georgia.

Critics of free markets claim that the 1980s and 90s were near-pure laissez-faire when, in reality, the regulatory state only got stronger. 

Modern academic economics is based upon the methodologies used to study the natural sciences. However, such methodologies are inappropriate to study economics, which must be based upon causal-realism.

With the demise of the Biden administration, it is time to take a hard look at the DEI programs it imposed. While divisive, simple removal will not solve underlying problems.

The great free-market classical liberal William Leggett believed that Americans do not need politicians telling us on which days Americans ought to be thankful.

Economist Bryan Caplan has held up the United Arab Emirates as an example of how open borders can be successful. Caplan clearly does not understand how immigration works in the UAE.

As Joseph Schumpeter noted, markets need “creative destruction” to survive and advance. However, Europe‘s Digital Market Act (DMA)—while written to ostensibly protect competition—gives the digital economy uncreative destruction.

Murray Rothbard wrote that egalitarianism is a “revolt against nature.” Progressives claim that inequality harms society and is morally unacceptable, but in reality, it is necessary for division of labor, which enables social cooperation.

The Biden administration, and the political establishment more broadly, is scrambling to ram through policies that a majority of voters just voted against. Their actions expose that their supposed commitment to democracy is a lie.

Even though DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) has taken a beating in some state legislatures, it still has a corrupting influence, especially in higher education. As Murray Rothbard pointed out, egalitarians are “at war with nature.”

Mainstream economists often base their analysis upon assumptions that do not square with reality. Austrian economics, on the other hand, is built upon realistic assumptions and the acknowledgement that good economics must reflect human action.

Austrian economics today needs critics. It doesn‘t need the critics (like Paul Krugman) who cannot give valid and accurate criticisms, but rather people who actually understand the concepts upon which Austrian thinking is built provide a real challenge.

The original Mont Pelerin Society meeting in 1947 featured Ludwig von Mises, whose warnings about the dangers of socialism and totalitarianism had gone unheeded. In the wreckage of World War II, the truth of his message should have been obvious. It wasn't.

Modern American culture is statist to the core. The typical school curriculum tells students that capitalism is evil and socialism is good.  This only gets worse in college. 

Totalitarianism is not compatible with a functioning economic system based upon free exchange and private property. Such regimes depend upon historicism and logical relativism.

While most of us know George Orwell as an authoritative critic of totalitarianism, few people know he was a committed socialist and a lifelong defender of communist Leon Trotsky. While he understood totalitarianism, he never understood socialism.

While it is often framed in the media as a battle between principled conservatives and an angry, non-ideological movement focused solely on personal loyalty to Trump, the current civil war on the American right is only the latest chapter in a much older story.

Is marijuana the magic elixir for economic performance and a cure for the Fed’s inflation?