The Austrian Circle: Recent Episodes
Rakkur
The Austrian Circle explores economics in the footsteps of Rothbard and Mises. Economics is the study of human relationship to scarcity as we inquire about the best path towards combating scarcity and obtaining prosperity for the most number of people. Economics properly applied to common problems in society reveals very interesting conclusions about social norms and the role of the State in society.
Being able to stay home with children is the result of capitalism and the resulting economic prosperity that inevitably occurs. Labor saving devices and capital accumulation gave families the surplus wealth to keep most of their family at home or at school. Human history is the sad story of parents and children having to work […]
Student loans today are not being paid back by borrowers, and colleges are incredibly expensive. Austrian Circle takes a look at the interventionism and central planning that caused these problems and how the market is our best way available to best allocate our resources towards customer demand.
Entrepreneurs help allocate resources towards the most highly valued ends of consumers amidst the uncertainty of the future. They take a resource or tool away from a less desired process of production and allocates it instead towards what consumers want more. They engage in a constantly adjusting process of feedback/communication whereby those who do well […]
Are profits ethical? Is there a maximum or minimum to profit ethically? Do contributing to socially “responsible” programs benefit society more than profit seeking businesses? Profit communicates important information about current consumer preferences to businesses so they can change their production process to adjust to it. Profit is the closest thing we have to measuring […]
What are prices? Prices convey information to various actors in society and inform them of crucial knowledge: what people want, how much they want, of what material should they be built from, how much material is available for production, among other things. Central planners distort and disrupt the price system and the knowledge it contains […]
Economics studies human choice, and choice today is often over-ruled by government agencies who believe that their tinkering will make people better off. Whether it be the amount that people save, which businesses win or lose, or even what times people must set their clocks to, there seems to be no end to the bureaucratic […]
The recent move by city governments and federal regulators to provide water containing lead to its citizens prompts concerns. How could this have happened, and why were checks and balances not in place? What alternative economic structures might have delivered compassionate and quality products to their clients rather than serving them poisoned water?
The standoff between ranchers and the federal government resulting in the occupation of a federal building by local militia points to a lot of problems in their “relationship.” This includes grazing land subsidies, federal land being over 50% of some entire states, and the use of terrorism legal impositions being used for non-terrorist acts.
We can be very hard on ourselves and can become our own personal dictators. Our self, our self interested preferences must be sacrificed, ignored, and mandated away. Today I talk about how our deep, personal preferences can be inconvenient for ourselves and others or can even be completely overruled by courts and politicians.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the injustice of the police and the courts in upholding unjust laws which did not adhere to the non-aggression principle. Arresting people, abusing them in prison for non-violent behavior, in this case in enforcing segregation laws, is an aggressive and unjust action.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was known for taking action and speaking out against injustice and racism. What is less talked about is how the racism was often systematically enforced or implemented by and defended by governments through their passage of law and their use of police, as he talks about in the letter he wrote […]
In the Star Wars universe, the empire was formed because of a betrayal by it’s political class and because the people demanded something that could never work: central planning of resource allocation via the political class. Central planning places the preferences of the planners above those of the consumer.
Star Wars is an epic tale of a Jedi family who, in the prequels, help to create and inflict the universe with a galactic empire, capable of the destruction of entire planets who refuse to submit to its demands. In the later episodes, Darth Vader’s son Luke fights back against this empire with the help […]
Devin Keehner, student and contributing writer, speaks with me about his article he wrote defending libertarianism and free will.
Today, we compare the different economic systems of capitalism and socialism in an attempt to understand how we can make human beings more prosperous and engage in ethically valid behavior. We also talk about some myths about the market economy and why we may want to rename the term capitalism to something else.
We take another look at how the Western governments have intervened in foreign lands and have created the very terrorists that they then use as justification for even more intervention, more meddling, and more loss of innocent life by war and weaponry. We also inspect the recent conflict with Russia and it’s planes being shot […]
Blooded the Brave, a hip hop artist and performer from Indiana, guest stars the show with me this week. We talk about his music, the history of hip hop and it’s focus on lyrics, and we also discuss the recent rise of the police state in society. Featuring “Man Down”, the new single off of […]
Secession is a concept as old as the American Revolution itself, as the early colonists seceded from Britain with the Declaration of Independence. Armies and guns soon invaded, as also occurred in the South seceding in 1861 prompting the War Between the States. Today, we’ve come a long way from armies suppressing dissent: now we […]
There are solutions that don’t involve force, government and law in regards to the environment, climate change, pollution, and other property disputes over the use of our world. How can we save the oceans, save dying species, and avoid ecological disasters while still retaining freedom?
The State and the military corporations who benefit from war create their own enemies to perpetuate those wars, whether it be the drug war against it’s own citizens or the foreign wars. Today, Syria is being targeted via attacking ISIS, which manifests itself seemingly coincidentally in areas in which bombing would cause economic harm to […]
I chat with Chase Rachels of the BRLP on the merits of free societies and why we would want to achieve true personal and political liberty. We also talk about peaceful parenting and how treating children with respect and non-violence can bring about a more peaceful and free world.
War is often sold under false pretenses through lies and manipulation. From the Civil War and even before it, politicians have used war as an excuse to curtail freedom, give more power to itself, and to steal life and property from the general population of the world.
While most people think that regulations are meant to keep the customer safe, they are actually the means of creating huge, monolithic corporations which are not beholden to their customer’s desires. Regulations destroy competition and create monopolies, since smaller companies can often not keep up with the financial requirements and hiring of legal teams necessary […]
Dr. Mark Thornton and I discuss what skyscrapers mean for the global economy, what causes and exacerbates business cycles, what the current economic landscape looks like, why people just aren’t saving money, and what the role and function of interest rates are. Dr. Mark Thornton
Consumers are the central, core decision makers about production and all prices of goods and labor. They determine what gets built, how much gets built, what resources are allocated where, how much workers are paid for their labor, and are the motivating factor for producers to meet those consumer’s demands. The idea that business and […]
On this episode, we chat with Rob McNealy in the midwest about the dangers of Statism and why voluntarism works. We talk about Detroit and the alternative solutions they are putting in place as their government tends towards bankruptcy and also what can be done to bring about liberty on this planet.
Politics can only see the world as constant conflict: black vs white, capitalist vs laborer, rich vs poor, old vs young, nation vs nation, etc. In the voluntary society, the only actual conflict occurs between criminals and non-criminals. “In the society based on division of labour and co-operation, the interests of all members are in […]
What is libertarianism? Here, we discuss the concepts of free markets, the non aggression principle, and an introduction to true liberty and freedom in human interactions.