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Mises Institute

5 min read

The Mises Institute is described by Bob Zadek as the leading institutional home of Austrian Economics, formally named the Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics and located in Auburn, Alabama. In a 2021 episode Zadek named Ludwig von Mises as one of the founders and icons of the school, and introduced Jeff Deist as the Institute’s president Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021). The episodes present the Institute chiefly through its president and its faculty, and through the resources it publishes, rather than as an organization with a documented history in these sources.

Jeff Deist and Austrian method

Introducing Deist, Zadek framed the hour as an exercise in applying an Austrian orientation to current affairs: how an Austrian economist would analyze “what is going on in the world that is causing us somewhat difficulty” and how that solution would compare with those imposed by state, local, and federal governments. Zadek gave Deist’s prior career as background, saying he had been active in Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign before going to the Mises Institute to lead it Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021).

On method, Deist distinguished Austrian Economics from what he called the physical sciences, saying Austrians begin with “a different method or approach” to the actual work of an economist. Zadek had set up the contrast with his own account of a first-year economics course built around Paul Samuelson’s textbook, which he remembered as graphs and data.

Money and central banking

Deist identified the treatment of money as possibly the second big difference between Austrian Economics and what professors today teach — how money enters society and how central banks work. Discussing the film The Big Short, he said it explored greed, malinvestment, commercial banks’ lending errors and Wall Street’s tranches and derivatives wrapped around subprime mortgages, but did not delve into what underlay the mania, which he argued was in large part central banks Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021). Zadek in turn noted Ron Paul’s campaign theme that the existence of central banks was part of the problem, and said many economists had written about the supply of money and the management of interest rates rather than letting rates find their equilibrium in the marketplace.

Foreign policy

Asked what founding principle governs the Institute’s approach to foreign policy, Deist answered that the Institute is against interventionism abroad as much as in the domestic economy, for many of the same reasons, because of unintended consequences and blowback. He called the bright-line distinction between foreign and economic policy misguided, arguing every dollar taken in taxes and applied to foreign policy is a dollar not spent in the domestic economy, and criticized the idea that governments can remake other countries, choosing their leaders or political systems, citing Afghanistan and Iraq. He allowed the natural right of self-defense as a separate question Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021).

Zadek pressed the vocabulary: the temptation, he said, would have been to call the position isolationist, but Deist had used “intervention,” and Zadek emphasized the difference — the Institute promotes active economic engagement and trade with foreign partners. Deist agreed the notion that America would be isolated is absurd, citing Coca-Cola, Levi’s and the iPhone, and said what isolates the United States is a belligerent foreign policy; trade, he said, is the best form of foreign policy, since people do not go to war with their customers and suppliers as a general rule.

Outreach and personnel

Deist directed listeners to Mises.org, describing free books, ebooks and downloads, and a free box of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson — which he called perhaps the single best introductory book ever written, short and divided into discrete chapters — available by signing up on the site. He also pointed to Twitter and Facebook Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021).

In a September 2022 episode, Zadek introduced Thomas DiLorenzo as an economist who had taught at Loyola University Maryland and was presently on the faculty of the Mises Institute, author of Problems with Socialism, How Capitalism Saved America, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Economics. Zadek said DiLorenzo’s blog posting, explaining that the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act was nothing other than a Trojan horse for Green New Deal socialist policies, made him the perfect guest to discuss that legislation Lies, Damned Lies & the Inflation Reduction Act (2022).

A 2019 episode places the Institute in the show’s intellectual network without discussing it directly: Charlie Deist mentioned the economist Walter Block, who “writes for Mises,” as holding that people are trapped by the gentle invisible hand where they are rather than where they might do better — an image offered in the context of rent control The Rent Control Bomb (2019).

Across episodes

Two episodes treat the Institute substantially — the 2021 hour with Jeff Deist, which covers its method, its monetary views, its foreign policy stance and its publications, and the 2022 episode introducing Thomas DiLorenzo of its faculty — while the 2019 rent control episode mentions it only in passing as the outlet for Walter Block; the episodes show no development or change in the treatment between episodes.

Guests and episodes

2 appearances by 2 guests, 2021–2022. Guests A–Z by first name.

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