Mises University

0:00Mises was born in 1881. We're going to be talking about the marginal... In this lecture on value, you talk about what type of... ...in view of competition and monopoly... I'm talking about... ...this morning about liberalism. ...interventionism and my subject... Rooted in the traditions of Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises, as well as Murray Rothbard and Efe Hayek, the Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in The Austrian School of Economics. Since 1986, it has been the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream. The program offers courses, seminars and reading groups on the whole range of the discipline. A core curriculum presents economic foundations and more than 50 elective classes explore the entire range of economics in all and all levels of advancement.

1:14I'm not an economics major, but I really do believe that if you want to know anything about what's going on in the world, you need to understand the economic aspect. Because the economic aspect will help you understand the social and political aspect. This facility and the scholars who study here are absolutely top-notch. And I'm so thankful that it's a program that actually brings students out here at almost no cost to the students from all over the world. I've met people from many countries here. It's just been a great opportunity to learn more and absorb knowledge from all these great scholars. It's just amazing how many different groups of people you can find here, you know, from all walks of life and from all over the country and all over the world, really.

2:00Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man's human existence. Ludwig von Mises. Coming in as a freshman at Loyola, none of this stuff was ever taught to me. I was only taught Keynesian economics. Not even the prospect of another school was ever brought up to me.

2:49And last year I had Professor DiLorenzo for the first time and I was kind of introduced to some of the readings on the Mises website. Austrian economics is very logical. You can kind of follow it. The logic is airtight. While some stuff I still am kind of ironing out like intellectual property and things like that, I'm kind of ironing out in my mind the logic behind it I understand and I can follow and it makes sense to me and it's very methodical in nature whereas the Keynesian stuff is just kind of like throwing a whole bunch of stuff out there and what sticks, This is my second time at the Mises U. I've been here two years before, and this time I joined the summer fellowship program, studying here for five weeks. I studied the calculation problem in the welfare estate.

3:47You have more time to really get to know what the others are doing. There's been a lot of PhD students here and you get a lot of good ideas for like how you could do a PhD with an Austrian angle. So that's been really rewarding. Well, I got started to get into Austrian economics about two years ago and a lot of the stuff was kind of a refresher for me. I'm not sure for me but like the breakout sessions that we did with like Papa and Murphy and stuff really helped to apply that to different stuff and some of the stuff was review and other stuff kind of made me think of things in different ways so I absolutely loved it everyone was incredibly generous, Block, Woods, all the guys were incredibly generous with their time and their everything it was fantastic one of the best weeks of my life. I'm definitely going to have a different worldview like when I come out of this place

4:40Now that I've, you know, it's helped to solidify how I take the whole Rothbardian worldview is that's kind of how to see myself as a pretty strong Rothbardian and kind of see that and analyze the rest of the world through that lens, and I already had that lens, but now that lens is more in focus since coming here. I've really enjoyed like just learning about Austrian economics. My business professor introduced me to Austrian economics kind of and gave me economics in one lesson and that kind of got me really interested in it because it's different than what I learned at school traditionally. I've really enjoyed block and woods I think they kind of bring like like they're kind of very like I feel like they're enthusiastic and, you know, make it very interesting.

5:28So I definitely, I think, enjoyed them the most. And Hoppe, he's definitely very, just a wealth of knowledge, so. I've bought like, probably like eight or nine books to take him and read, so really excited. I was here last year, my first time last year, first, it was my first time being exposed to so many libertarians in one spot. and second time around is even better. Going through the classes, I actually understand a little more. Last year, I was virtually nil in my understanding of Austrian libertarianism. I mean, I was libertarian. I understood the basics of Austrian economics. But this year, it seemed like I understood more fully what it was all about. Praxeology, Human Action, using that method to understand the world of exchanges. Commerce without people is nothing. It relies on people.

6:16What got me interested was my professor, Linda Rader. She was a reference in the liberalism lecture a couple of days ago, and she's a political theorist, and she's into freedom and Austrian economics, and I started listening to her ideas, and they kind of shifted me from the whole leftist socialism to a free market, and I started listening to her ideas, and they kind of shifted me from the whole leftist socialism to a free market. and the market, freedom and American society type of guy. So it was a dramatic change for me after having her as a professor. So that's what got me into it. I started reading Hayek, started reading a little Mises, and then it really started to captivate me, regardless of the math thing. I was just like, this is where I want to go.

7:01I definitely agree with the praxeological method of the Austrian School, especially with regards to the fact that we start, this school starts on the premise that the human is what matters, It is There is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a dismal science.

7:55But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. Murray Rothbard. You get out of a class and then you go and sit down and eat lunch with like Roderick long and it's just incredible I mean you just read about these people and read their works and listen to them and then you come down here and talk to them about the things that they're saying so you're you're really they push you to the forefront of Austrian economics and then say well you can just ask anything you want and everybody's prepared and if you ask like David Gordon anything like Like everyone else has said, he'll just give you incredible answers and reference like page numbers and chapter numbers and paragraphs.

8:48So it's incredible to be down here. I've been finding myself waking up at like six and in the morning I eat breakfast and talk to people about economics and I end up going till like three o'clock in the morning and I'm just going straight the whole time and I stay at the Mises Institute all day long. What I'm most impressed with are the people that have come down here just by contacting the website. And they cover such a broad range of industry and study, from mechanical engineering to English. And they just love the free market knowledge and logic. So just talking with the people that are here has just been an experience all on its own.

9:36I had no idea what to expect coming down here. Some of my expectations did come to fruition expecting some of the brilliant economic thought from the peers and the faculty that I was going to get, but the other that came into it was just a nice compliment. I've been interested in Austrian economics for around three years now, and it's been a really enlightening week. I mean, I've been interested in the philosophies of capitalism. My company is called Entrecapitalink, Entrepreneurial Capitalism. I'm very interested in Ayn Rand and of course Mises. So, I realized this was a place I had to check out and come and see what's going on.

10:21So, I guess it was one of the places you would have to see if you're interested in the capitalism philosophy. It was more than what I expected. I didn't expect this much education. And the extensiveness of it. So it was a lot more than what I expected. And you realize this information is really hard to get elsewhere. And to spend time with, we read their books all the time, but to actually sit down with them face-to-face or listen to what they're saying, it's a very valuable experience. The ability to pick different sessions, to see what you sort of like. The first time I followed Garrison around, this time around, I've been doing a lot of the theory and history stuff, so it's great that you can fit it to whatever you want to study.

11:07I absolutely recommend the Fellow Program. They give you free range to do whatever you want, and there's no one hovering over you to make sure you do your work. But everyone here is coming in nights, weekends, spending all their time, because you don't get an opportunity like this back at your university to study Austrian economics. When I was in high school, I actually got to read Murray Rothbard's What Has Government Done to Our Money, and I also read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, learned about the Mises Institute through those readings, and I became an English major in college, but I continued this interest kind of as a side interest in economics, read Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy, The God That Failed my freshman year of college. Of course It wasn't that popular at my college campus to hold those views because everyone thinks that, you know, if you're against democracy, you're against freedom.

12:02But that's what drew me here was to find fellowship with other people who have read the same things that I've read, who are interested in talking about the same ideas that I've been talking, trying to talk and dialogue with people about. No one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore, everyone in his own interests must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern. The interests of everyone hang on the result. Ludwig von Mises

13:12And she said, oh, we've got a few books on India, why don't you have a look at those? I browsed through, and the one I picked out is called India Unbound, and this is by Gurcharan Das. He should pay me for advertising his book now. But I read that, and that was, you know, cover to cover. It was less than half a week I read that, and it was just, bam! I felt like socialism is kind of like, you can describe it in a metaphor. The Western countries, they have time to accumulate capital, they have time to accumulate technology, and the free market allows you to get all these things. It's like a car is running along with its wheels on the road. If you shoot its tires, which is what socialism does, then it can keep chugging along for a bit. We see this is how the welfare states in the West survive. But what happened in India was the engine was not even started.

13:56We didn't even get in the car and somebody shot the tires. That's the metaphor I saw. That was the bad taste. I never considered socialism after that. I sometimes think maybe if I read Man Economy and State first, then I would not even be here. I read Human Action, and that was the next slap in the face. I spent about 200 pages just, you know, going over, going over, like, the first time I read through it, I wasn't even getting what Mises was saying. And I challenged myself, and I looked at the other epistemological works that have been done, you know, in papers by the Austrian School, The Mantle of Science by Rothbard, Hans Hoppe's work, this is all, they're like a big epistemological, you know, Hardcore Trio and people, I mean the people here I've met are so passionate about it. I mean myself, I feel that way too and I know from when I interact with people that even if they may not agree with my views, people respect,

14:47you know, the sincerity that you come across with your views and this allows you a gate with which to come in with the reason and in terms of reasoning the Austrian School, yes, I'll say it, is invincible compared to the others. Mises University was a wonderful experience. Not just the lectures, which themselves were great. I think Hans-Hermann Hoppe is probably one of the funniest people I've ever met. Not to mention one of the greatest scholars alive. Speaking with the students, I've learned a great deal and gotten into some very intense debates about some more subtle differences on ideas. and I'm walking away with many new insights and I'm glad for that.

15:35I was speaking with several other students here and some actually believe that there's a need for new insights and an ethical basis for libertarianism. And so I think that, you know, working with some of the masters like Nietzsche and Aristotle and perhaps even some stuff with Heidegger, Haydiger, I know Rothbard did not have the nicest of things to say about him, would be useful in discovering some new basis, or improving on the basis of libertarianism. I've always, since high school, I used to be a traditional conservative, I guess, with libertarian leanings, I guess, like any adolescent. So I started reading, I read Friedman, and I thought, wow, this is great, capitalism and freedom. and then I read Hayek and I was like, freedom is kind of, you know, not as strong, and then I read, I eventually found my way to Mises and then lastly Rothbard, and then by then I was like, freedom is a socialist, that status guy, I wouldn't be caught dead in a room with him, and then just always passionate about it, just reading, I mean, in Brazil it's a bit harder, I mean nowadays with the internet and Amazon, delivering books is a bit better, but it wasn't easy, you know, so I'd go to lurockwell.com every day and go to mises.org every day and passionately read about it. I did four years of economics at a very Keynesian school in Rio,

16:49As most mainstream courses are, they had a bit of more Chicago School of Economics, but broadly speaking, very mainstream, very Keynesian, ISLM curves up the wazoo. I loved reading Austrian economics, the committed sort of dedication to radicalism and principle. And then coming to New York, I worked in finance at JP Morgan for three years and then eventually found my way to Peter Schiff. and finally found my way to, you know, started to come down here for a week and, you know, see all these professors whose books I've read so often and see them actually in the flesh. So it's quite exciting. The observer status is basically for people that aren't students. So you know, just because you're not between the ages of 18 to 22 at a college doesn't mean you can't come down here and still partake in the intellectual environment of the Mises Institute. I mean, I recommended you basically pay a fee which goes towards the running of the institute, towards, you know, helping some of the students out and whatnot and you can

17:41You can basically sit in the back, or sit in the middle as it were, and watch, and you're effectively a student. I mean, you're pretty much as much a part of this, the Mises University, and learning as much as anyone else. The only caveat is you can't take the exam, which I suppose is fair, but I mean, I've loved it. I mean, between the discussions at lunch, watching the classes, talking to the professors and the students, a lot of them come from diverse backgrounds with very passionate interests. The philosophy of the Mises University goes way beyond merely introducing ideas on a variety of topics.

18:34We set out to achieve what you hardly find anymore in college, a systematic integrated program to instill a logical and coherent body of ideas from beginning to end, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. In the undergraduate, when they talked about human action, the way it was presented, I I didn't really understand Austrian economics from the way that everything was presented and I sat in on the undergraduate courses for that. But here, to have it spelled out, start with the very beginnings through the whole week, from the very foundations of it all the way to the more complex things, It's been fantastic. I've been really able to put the knowledge web together as to how it fits.

19:33And it makes so much sense to me. The Austrian method, the Austrian approach just makes so much sense. It's something that, as I understand more, it's been very inspiring to be here, to learn, and to see people making, trying to make a difference in this, in how things are understood, in how the arguments are framed, or what's going on in the world, in a way. I definitely want to come back and be involved and study more. It's interesting that I've studied a lot of different things. I mean, my undergraduate was in a completely different area.

20:20I've gone to law school and studied a lot of things with a PhD, but it seems like there's so much... Being here this week has given me... And this is a discipline that has so much traction, so much real, true truth to it. I feel like I'm in an environment that I've never been in before in my life where I can really share my ideas openly and not having to worry about justifying the basic underpinnings of what I believe. I think the structure is great. I think it's very well structured. So I would, if anything, like a little bit more time after the lectures to talk to everyone who's been talking, but you know, you take the number of people in the room, it's obvious they're all fascinated, so obviously they're going to have the complaint that there's not enough time to talk, and anytime you hear someone saying, there's not enough time to talk to the professors, that's an indication that there's so much interest in what's going on. So I think if you really look at that from an economic perspective, that's a way to measure the fact that Mises University really

21:32It's doing great things and it's innovation and ideas and people are interested and want to discuss it. I've been a libertarian, a real libertarian for the last probably five years or something. And I met other people who, fellow libertarians who introduced me to the Austrian School, the Mises Institute, said that if I wanted to learn more about real economics and libertarianism and libertarian philosophy, I should read some of the books from the great Austrian economics, could be Mises, could be Hayek, could be Rothbard. I was probably 17 or 18 and I had to decide my major in my undergrad and I was like totally into psychology. But then I was like, you know, if I do psychology, you know, I'm not going to know anything about the world, you know, I want to know how the world works.

22:18That's really interesting as well, you know, that's pretty cool. I studied basic, like supply and demand, and I was like, yeah, that makes sense, and that's pretty cool. So I just decided, okay, no, I won't do psychology, I'll do economics as my major. So my undergrad, you know, and in India, you don't really learn anything. I mean, they don't really teach you anything in undergrad. I didn't really learn anything. And then I enrolled in a master's program in Pune, where I live. And it's a pretty good institute in India, and it's pretty mainstream and really hardcore with all the math. and you know and that was like a big shock I was like I hate economics I hated like what is this you know it's got nothing to do with the world a professor even said you know if you want to study reality why are you studying economics I mean he said that to us our micro teacher is like I hate this you

23:06know and but then in my second year this is when I meet my now husband he comes he joins the same course and then we meet and everything and then we're like We would talk about economics and, you know, it sucks and, you know, and we just, we were reading, we were going through our library, and our library in India, in Pune, has all these books, has all the Austrian books, all of them, all of them, Human Action, Theory and History, Man Econ, Mean State, everything, Israel Kirzner, everything, it had everything. I just, I got onto Mises.org, so this was, we're total Mises.org babies, you know, really, we are born and raised. Yeah, we wouldn't be here if we would download, you know, I would download stuff about like, you know, you know, the stuff that we were reading in class, like, you know, critiquing it like Keynes and critiquing it like, wow, like somebody's actually said these things about Keynes, because when you're studying it, you know, it's kind of crazy, but why doesn't your professor see it,

24:06you know, why? And that was really cool. So, I mean, it just snowballed. I want to, you know, be able to write and argue at a certain level, which I see certain professors who can do that here, and that's my ambition, to be able to argue with that, like Rothbard or Mises, with that kind of cutting clarity. And definitely do stuff in India, there's this huge market for the marketplace of ideas in India, everybody's just basically still socialist and nobody questions anything. Mises University has been a fantastic experience for me. I've got to learn and build upon the knowledge I gained from reading Human Action and Man Economy and State.

24:53I got to interact with the very top scholars like Robert Murphy. I really have two reasons for being here. One is to learn more about economic theory as an intellectual discipline because for me it means so much since it's a coherent intellectual system, a framework. And in philosophy at the schools where I studied, I didn't encounter such an impressive intellectual framework as Austrian economics. So it was great for me to be able to come here to an institution that focuses specifically on it and its implications for politics as well as ethics. One of the great things about Mises U is that it helps explain a lot of your questions. It takes what you already know and builds upon it.

25:40There's a huge spectrum of opinions here. And I love that. Everyone doesn't think the same way. We're not all clones, but at the same time we have a central idea of liberty that holds us together, the ideal of liberty. The Mises Institute has a very cultural, intellectual environment to it, which I guess you really can't find elsewhere. I think Mises is great and I plan on applying subsequent years definitely and might come back even if you don't let me. People here are insanely intelligent, I just felt so low so I spent most of my time listening so I was more on the receiving end trying to grasp as much as I can.

26:27This is a lifelong transformation, I'm dedicated to the Austrian School, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to learn. If you'd like to help support this wonderful and unique teaching institution, the Mises University, visit Mises.org and thank you.