Jeff Deist on college education

Many students leave university with disastrously stupid worldviews - hostile to property, markets, free speech, family, and even civilization itself.  The whole cottage industry of "indentity  studies" is useless and destructive, by design.  These phony courses leave kids dispirited, depressed about the future, and ready to throw away centuries of received wisdom for a progressive blank slate.  Unwitting students graduate meaner, dumber, and older - with de facto degrees in narcissism ("I feel") and nihilism ("I hate").  Talk about opportunity cost!  Paraphrasing Mises, universities are gardens of socialism rather than exciting places for knowledge, ideas, and development.

~ Jeff Deist, Mises Institute fund raising letter, April 20, 2022

Lew Rockwell on how Ludwig von Mises was given sanctuary in Switzerland in the 1930s

This is hardly the first time statism has cast a dark shadow over civilization.  In the years following the stock market crash of 1929, various sorts of socialism battled for control.  In different countries, it had different names - Bolshevism, National Socialism, Fascism, New Dealism, Fabianism - but the essential principles were the same.  As Mussolin put it: "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

In Austria, however, one prominent economist refused to go along.  His name was Ludwig von Mises, known all over the Continent for his pioneering contributions to economic theory, his personal integrity, his tenacity, his love of liberty, and his dogged opposition to all forms of despotism.

As the storm clouds gathered, he realized that Austria would fall to either the Communists or the Nazis.  Then in 1934, a letter arrived.  It was from an independent academic institute in Switzerland, offering Mises a position.  It meant a two-thirds cut in pay, but it also meant sanctuary.

He left immediately for Geneva, and for six years, until he emigrated to America, he worked very hard.  The result was the original German version of Human Action, the greatest economic treastis of the 20th century.  Even today, Human Action is a big seller, still educating students in liberty.

Meanwhile, the Nazi armies did arrive in Austria, marched to Mises's apartment, and stole everything, including all the books and papers he had not taken with him to Switzerland.  Mises.e never saw them again, but his ability to research, write, and teach had survived.

People ask, what would have become of the idea of liberty had Human Action not been written.  But another question is just as important: What would have become of Mises had that insitute not existed to provide him refuge?

When I think of the value of the Mise Institute to the world, I think of our predecessor in the 1930s.  The parallels between them and now are obvious, and chilling.

~ Lew Rockwell, November 25, 2021

Lew Rockwell on what the Mises Institute hopes to accomplish

I am often asked what the Mises Institute hopes to accomplish.  Both Mises and Rothbard were undoubtedly asked about their own hopes.  I think their answer would have been very simple: they hoped to write what is true and do what is right, and to do it with enthusiasm and vigor.  If we do nothing else, that is enough.  And yet, it is everything.

[...]

The difficult times in which we live are a reminder that our mission is far from complete.  The forces of statism are always waiting for an opportunity to rob us of the blessings of prosperity and liberty, of civilivation itself.

Mises believed that the best way to defeat the socialists was to say what is true.  Against the idea of liberty, he said, the fiercest sword of the despot is finally powerless.

~ Lew Rockwell, fundraising letter, November 25, 2021

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Mises Insitute on the unseen costs of government-imposed lockdowns

In 1850, French economist Frédéric Bastiat helped the world understand the “seen and unseen costs” of state policies. It is simple to see how quarantines and lockdowns will slow the spread of COVID-19. It is critical, but not so simple, to see the costs and harms caused by the economic shutdown.

Only then can we rationally understand the tradeoffs involved. 

How many Americans suffering from other illnesses cannot see a doctor now? How many Americans will lose their jobs, their life savings, their retirement prospects, and their incalculable feeling of self-worth? How many will succumb to depression, drug or alcohol abuse, and suicide? How many will lose their homes, divorce their spouses, or suffer abuse? How many will never recover in their careers? How many small businesses, including the vital ones of doctors, dentists, and veterinarians, will vanish from your community? How many young people will “fail to launch”?

~ Mises Institute editors, "End the Shutdown," Mises.org, March 31, 2020