mises

John Nothdurft and Donny Kendal present episode #106 of the In The Tank Podcast. Today’s podcast features work from the Heartland Institute, the Pioneer Institute and the Empire Center.

John Nothdurft and Donny Kendal present episode #80 of the In The Tank Podcast. Today’s podcast features work from the Mises Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Hudson Institute.

Almost everyone outside the world of the Austrian School of Economics unquestionably assumes that the regulation of so-called “natural monopoly utilities” is both fair and necessary as well as efficient and effective. This is — to borrow a buzz word from the Left — “unsustainable,” in both theory and practice.

Over a scholarly career that has spanned a half a century, Kirzner has enriched our understanding of the theory of the competitive process, the role of the entrepreneur in bringing about market coordination and innovation, the nature of capital and interest, the dangers resulting from the regulated economy, and the importance of individual freedom for the open-ended creativity that enhances the general human condition.

Forty years ago, during the week of June 15-22, 1974, the Austrian School of Economics was reborn during a conference in the small New England town of South Royalton, Vermont. Why was this important? Because the economists of the Austrian School have developed the most persuasive understanding of why only economic freedom can give mankind both liberty and prosperity.

This year marks one hundred years since the beginning of the First World War in the summer of 1914. The Great War, as it used to be called, brought great devastation in its wake. Millions of human lives were lost on the battlefields of Europe; vast amounts of accumulated wealth were consumed to cover the costs of combat; and battles and bombs left a large amount of physical capital in ruins. But the “war to end war,” as it was called, also resulted in another weapon of economic mass destruction – an orgy of paper-money inflations.