Mainstream opinion writers have opined that Bitcoin mining is too energy intensive. They say it contributes to climate change , or that it simply takes more energy than a monetary system is justified in taking, and is a “ potentially catastrophic energy guzzler .” Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are often admittedly energy-intensive in the
[ Reprinted from Free Market Economics: A Basic Reader compiled by Bettina G. Greaves and The Freeman July 1962. ] “Who should conserve our resources?” If a poll were taken, a large majority probably would answer: “Our federal and state governments.” And if one were to ask why this view is so widely held, he would find among other “reasons” the
[ This talk was delivered at the Mises Institute’s 2018 Ron Paul-Mises Circle In Lake Jackson, Texas. ] There is a crisis, and only you, and people like you, can get us out of it. What is this crisis? On the one hand, the statist order is collapsing all around us. America is mired in a futile war in Afghanistan. A belligerent policy toward Iran
Free will is the starting point of all ethical thinking and it plays an equally important part in the business of making a living. If man were not endowed with this capacity for making choices, he could not be held accountable for his behavior, any more than could a fish or a fowl — an amoral being, a thing without a sense of morals. So, if man
[ Adapted from an address before the American Farm Bureau “Farm, Family and Christian Resources” Conference, October 30, 1958; reprinted in The Freeman, January 1959. ] Free will is the starting point of all ethical thinking and it plays an equally important part in the business of making a living. If man were not endowed with this capacity for
Amazon isn’t the first big corporation to manipulate policymakers by shopping around the idea of relocating its headquarter to the “right” city. The “right” city, of course, is the one that provides the company with enough tax breaks and other political favors so as to make the move worth it. Back in 2001, for example, Aerospace company Boeing did
A federal judge today ruled the White House must temporarily re-instate the press pass of CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s, who had been barred after an argument with Donald Trump in the press room. The judge ruled the White House had violated due process by banning Acosta. CNN, however, had requested a ruling saying that Acosta more or less had a
This talk was delivered at the Abbeville Institute’s conference on Secession and Nullification in Dallas, Texas on November 10, 2018. My talk today is about decentralization and epistemology. At the outset I wish to disclaim any specialized expertise in this subject. I’m a lawyer by training who loves literature and earned a doctorate in English.
Money supply growth slowed in October, falling to the lowest rate recorded since February of this year. Overall, money-supply growth remains well below the growth rates experienced from 2009 to 2016, and has fluctuated very little since March. In October, year-over-year growth in the money supply was at 3.7percent. That was down from September’s
The news in Latin America this year has brought two reminders that Latin America’s stringent gun controls have not stemmed the growing homicide problem in many parts of the region. The first is that homicides reached new highs in Mexico this year , reaching record levels not seen since the country began keeping records twenty years ago. Secondly,
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.