How Government Intervention Benefits Big Business and Ten Things You Should Know About Socialism – Mises U 2017

July 28, 2017 By Edward Lewis

This is the last day for my notes on Mises University 2017. I wanted to watch an additional talk by Tim Terrell on product regulation but there were some streaming issues. The first two lectures here go together quite nicely. It’s a rough outline of how libertarians tend to view the government-business relationship. The more nuanced, sophisticated expression of the libertarian opposition to government intervention isn’t that government regulation violates the right of businesses to do whatever they want, but that... Read more

Economics vs. Conventional Wisdom, Plus Some Philosophy – Mises U 2017

July 27, 2017 By Edward Lewis

I got a late start today, but I was able to squeeze in a couple of lectures from two of my favorite speakers, David Gordon and Tom Woods. Enjoy! Lecture 1 – Apriorism and Positivsm in the Social Sciences Gordon begins by noting that Mises believed that economics can contribute to epistemology, that is, the study of how we know. Mises argued that economics uses a different method to arrive at general laws from that which is used in the physical... Read more

Business Cycles, the Environment, Drugs, Fake News, Hayek and Keynes, and the Minimum Wage – Mises U 2017

July 26, 2017 By Edward Lewis

Lecture 1 – The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle by Roger Garrison Lecture 2 – Environmental and Resource Economics by Tim Terrell Lecture 3 – The Opioid Epidemic by Mark Thornton Lecture 4 – Fake Economic News by Walter Block Lecture 5 – Hayek and Keynes: Head to Head by Roger Garrison Lecture 6 – Minimum Wage by Mark Thornton Lecture 1 – The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle by Roger Garrison Here we go! I’ve seen this lecture... Read more

Socialism, Inequality, War, Monopoly Power, and Market Failure – All in a Day’s Work – Mises U 2017

July 25, 2017 By Edward Lewis

Today is the beginning of concurrent lectures so I had some options but these are sessions I settled on. I skipped note-taking on a Jeff Herbener lecture about banking since that’s going to overlap with Roger Garrison’s talks later this week on the business cycle and Hayek and Keynes, which I will discuss here. Peter Klein had some fascinating comments on the minimum wage and monopsony (a market situation in which there is only one buyer – usually for labor)... Read more

What You Need to Know About the Austrian School – Mises U 2017

July 24, 2017 By Edward Lewis

This is the first full day of Mises U 2017 and it’s reserved for these 7 essential lectures. Recorded versions of these lectures from past Mises events are probably available on YouTube. (note: I was unable to view Peter Klein’s lecture as I work from home and had a customer appointment): Lecture 1 – The Birth of the Austrian School by Joe Salerno Lecture 2 – Subjective Value and Market Prices by Jeff Herbener Lecture 3 – Praxeology: The Method of Economics... Read more

What I Learned from Murray Rothbard – Mises U 2017

July 24, 2017 By Edward Lewis

Thanks for joining me for this series of posts on Mises University 2017. If you missed my first post where explain what this is all about, it’s here. I hope you learn something from this – something about economics, history, and political-economy – something about an uncommon, but very old perspective, a way of thinking about human action and social order with which you may disagree, but also may not fully understand. I am admittedly a sympathetic reviewer, but I nonetheless... Read more

Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains is Under Bombardment

July 20, 2017 By Edward Lewis

Nancy MacLean’s new book on James Buchanan, public choice economics, and the “radical right” isn’t faring well. On the surface, it’s an awkward project, given that Buchanan wasn’t all that influential of a libertarian – not compared with Ayn Rand, F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard. You’d have a bit more luck casting one of those titans as the “evil genius” behind a clandestine libertarian operation to overthrow American democracy. I suspect a part of the... Read more

Mises University 2017

July 8, 2017 By Edward Lewis

When I was an undergrad at Huntington University, the highlight of my summers was the week-long conference-style Mises University program at the Ludwig von Mises Institute down in Auburn, Alabama, right next to the campus of Auburn University. I attended in 2007, 08, and 09, and I traveled down there a fourth time in 2010 for the Rothbard Graduate Seminar (here I am quoted in this 2008 review). The social atmosphere was tremendous and I have very fond memories of my time... Read more

Put up your tree and look to the future

November 23, 2016 By Edward Lewis

I rolled out of bed this morning (but not before checking Facebook on my phone with one eye open to make sure no one was being stupid) and I made myself a hot cup of caffeine-free honeybush pumpkin tea of the loose leaf variety. I sat myself down in my papasan chair and opened my black Tolkien-inspired Moleskin. There’s a quote from Henry Miller in the Nov, 8th entry, “The aim of life is to live, and to live means to... Read more

Anabaptist Politics in 21st Century USA – Sermon from 11/6/2016

November 7, 2016 By Edward Lewis

I am grateful to Emmaus Road Mennonite Fellowship in Berne, IN for asking me to deliver a message the Sunday before Election Day 2016. This is the first sermon I’ve ever written or delivered. There is more where this came from, but I wanted to keep it to about 20 minutes. Some have asked that I make this available online, so that’s what I’m doing here. I have broken this up into many small paragraphs for readability. A special thanks to... Read more