Austrian School of Economics

Delusions of Omnipotence and Shifting Backdrops: USA and EU Launch Giant Industrial Policy Programs

The USA and the EU have recently been in a subsidy race—industrial policy by bureaucrats. The innovative forces of the market are being undermined and the inefficiency of these measures is predictable.

Socially Unjust Inflation: Why Recessions Are Inevitable and Salutary

Inflation is profoundly socially unjust. Its causes lie above all in an expansionary monetary policy, and this must be stopped. If policymakers want to prevent the inevitable recession that will follow, they will only make the problems worse.

Leviathan Wobbles and Wavers—But the Citizens are Ultimately Responsible for It

In Germany, there is a growing gap between the inflation of the state apparatus and its ability to fulfill its tasks. Politics suffers from political fantasies of omnipotence and constitutional ignorance. Who is to blame?

Green Climate Policy: Moralism, Ideology and Dirigisme

The Greens are painting a picture of environmental and climate apocalypse. In this way, they try to moralize the debate and present themselves as the advocates of the good. On closer inspection, their program turns out to be ideological wishful thinking that eschews capitalism and the market economy.

The Universal Destination of Goods and Private Property: Is the right to private property only a “second-tier” natural right?

Did the rich get rich by robbing the poor? Theology and Catholic social teaching have long known that wealth generation is not a zero-sum game, but a process from which everyone benefits.

Socialism Is a Seductive Idea, but It Is Incompatible with Freedom and Prosperity

Why intellectuals have often advocated socialism, and why it is incompatible with freedom. The economist and book author Kristian Niemietz of the London Institute of Economic Affairs is interviewed by Stefan Beig.

Economic Liberalism Is Not Social Darwinism: From Adam Smith to Charles Darwin

A hundred years before Darwin, the economist and philosopher Adam Smith discovered that, thanks to the division of labor, the most skilled workers and enterprises prevail, not simply the ones with more brute strength. Darwin was significantly influenced by this idea.

The Primacy of Politics and the “Other” Socialism

The “primacy of politics” over the logic of the economy is repeatedly and categorically demanded. Insofar as such efforts undermine the private property-based power of disposition over the means of production, it is the first step in the direction of the “other socialism.”

Thinking Economically: Only the Market and the Logic of Exchange Create Prosperity

Economics is not a zero-sum game. In exchange, both sides always benefit. Exchange is the soul of the market and creates added value, and does so in a way that benefits everyone involved. A plea for economic enlightenment.

Currency Competition: The Renewed Interest in Cryptocurrencies

Only the sovereign of a liberal democratic community, the citizen, can set limits to state action. Challenging the state’s monetary monopoly through monetary competition would be one means of doing so.

Has Liberalism Failed? Patrick Deneen’s Populist Anti-Liberalism: A Catholic Classical Liberal’s Response

In his book “Why Liberalism Failed” Patrick Deneen deals with all varieties of Liberalism. They are the fruit of a false image of man – an assertion which, however, proves to be questionable on closer inspection.

F.A. Hayek on the Discovery, Use, and Transmission of Knowledge

This September marked the 75th anniversary of F.A. Hayek’s pivotal essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” It is not only a noteworthy advance in Hayek’s critique of central planning. Hayek’s insights about competition as a ‘discovery procedure’ also provides conceptual tools for other forms of institutional analysis.

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