Introducing the Mises Curriculum!

The Mises Institute has always promoted scholarship and education in the pursuit of liberty. Ideas have always been at the heart of our mission.

That’s why we decided in 2010 to make world-class instruction in the ideas of liberty only a mouse-click away for people around the world. So we started Mises Academy, the first — and best — Austrian economics online learning platform in the world. Next we added a broader range of liberty-focused courses to the Academy. Since then we’ve delivered dozens of in-depth, high-caliber live courses to thousands of students around the world.

The 50+ courses in the Mises Curriculum at the Mises Institute will guide you through Austrian economics, from the action axiom to advanced monetary theory, and through libertarian political philosophy, from the non-aggression principle to advanced libertarian legal theory. Also included are courses on history, philosophy, and even logic.

Course design and lectures are by the soundest thinkers and the top scholars in the Misesian/Rothbardian tradition: Joseph Salerno, Peter Klein, David Gordon, Robert Murphy, Thomas DiLorenzo, and others. You’ll get the real deal: thoroughly praxeological and completely free-market economics, as well as principled, radical, and uncompromising libertarian theory.

For a mere $99/year, you can get full access to all of these courses, including hours of lectures recorded in both video and audio, hyperlinked syllabi of online readings, professor-written quizzes, certificates of completion, and more. Work through whole courses from start to finish, or fill in gaps in your understanding by zeroing in on particular lectures and lessons from multiple courses.

Ideas Have Consequences

Ludwig von Mises demonstrated that all governments, and the social order itself, depend onideology, which he defined as “the totality of our doctrines concerning individual conduct and social relations,” and which includes both doctrines that concern ends, like political philosophies, and doctrines that concern means, like economic theories. Therefore, it is ultimately ideology that is what gives a state the widespread influence, or “might,” as Mises called it, that it needs to rule.

Thus, contrary to Mao’s famous dictum, political power flows not from the barrel of a gun but from ideas. In fact, Mao’s own rise to power, and that of many like him, was ultimately due in large part to the fact that the idea of a planned society, including its purest form, socialism, had captured the hearts, minds, and imaginations of entire generations, from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Its time had come, however fleetingly, and many regimes that tried to stop the march of socialist ideas with force utterly failed. It was only widespread disenchantment with socialism that halted the march.

Moreover, freedom from political power is also ultimately based on ideas. When the time does come for the ideas of liberty — libertarian political philosophy and sound economics — it won’t be, as The New York Times recently put it, a “libertarian moment.” It will be, as Ron Paul clarified, a “libertarian transition.” And the state, for all its weapons and cages, will be powerless to stop it, because the ideas of liberty are the negation of the ideas upon which the state’s power rests.

It was the ideas of the political philosophers of liberalism and of the laissez-faire economists that were ultimately responsible for the limited flowering of liberty that occurred prior to the rise of the modern managerial state.

And it is the ideas of thinkers like Mises and Murray Rothbard, propagated by institutions like the Mises Institute and individuals like you, which can give moral leaders like Ron Paul the “might” to sway the public to choose liberty. That is the battle of ideas before us.

We have always developed courses with systematic, long-term study in mind, intent on building an archive of courses that constitutes a thorough Austro-libertarian curriculum. And we are now making that treasury of truth-teaching available as one amazing resource: The Mises Curriculum.

If you would like to thoroughly prepare yourself to help us make liberty become the idea whose time has come, I can think of no better way to do it. For more information, and to register, go to Mises.org/Curriculum.

Note: The views expressed in Daily Articles on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

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Is Liberty Subjective?

I have seen this more than once and it always perplexes me. How can someone say they would rather be seemingly safe but controlled rather than seemingly safe but free? Can liberty and freedom be subjective? Can someone hold themselves more valuable as a slave to a state or another entity or person than as a free individual? Do some not recognize freedom and all its benefits?

This issue came up the other day in a conversation by a friend. She was expounding on what she sees as a growing problem with home-school parents. She was/ is dismayed by a home-school group member who is telling new home-school parent to refuse to comply with laws. Their unwillingness to sign paperwork or refuse to register  to the state or county in accordance with laws. She further tried to explain the freedoms that home-school advocates and participants currently enjoy because of these laws. "We have worked hard for this freedom." is her closing line. My wife responded in her typical manner, telling her that adherence to law is not freedom, but subservience, in different words.

The misconception and possible delusion that is placed in the idea that law gives freedom is easy to spot and easy to address. Compulsion to follow laws and dictates is hardly free from coercion, it is forced to comply and if permission can be granted it can also be revoked. This is the major issue with the idea that asking permission to do any act is somehow being and remaining free. Any act is free to do or free to not do without punishment is freedom, every act of permission, licensing, and permitting is an infringement on the natural rights of individuals. Every time a government agency requires signatures, fees and compliance it can revoke access, use and recreation. The very idea of freedom is free from compulsion in any way.

Can people not recognize Freedom?

I truly believe that some people cannot recognize the freedom they have or the ways in which it is suppressed by government. Take the same concept of licensing. If a man is free to fish, should he be required by law to obtain permission and a license to do so and if this man refuses to submit to asking for permission should he be punished for not having a license? In the minds of many the question is unequivocally a violation of the mans natural freedom. His state of being and all actions that do not impede on the rights of other should not be hampered or constrained by bureaucrats and their heavy handed state sponsors.

Can we not see what freedom is? Can we not recognize that the state of the world today we, as humans, have enslaved and caged ourselves by the ultimate Utopian idea of government by popular opinion and laws dictated by an immoral central authority? Can we ever gain true independence from outside governance? What does it take for the majority of people to recognize their natural state of freedom is contradicted by the use of force and violence for practicing self rule and self governance?

Is Liberty Subjective?

How can one person claim to be free by following orders? How can one person shout for safety while shrugging personal freedom, casting it aside to the edicts of some higher power made of publicly voiced opinion of moral and value? All men can be responsible for their own choices and in those choices some view liberty, the act and state of being free as less valuable than a state of uniform security and the ability to not be held accountable or responsible for their actions. I believe that Liberty has become regarded as a second hand asset rather than the first rule of nature. It has become so trampled by misinformation, programming and propaganda that people would gladly shackle their own ankles to remain in favor of the omniscient big brother government, their salvation from evil and protector of morals.

Do we accept murder?

Do Americans accept the fact that murder is committed on a grand scale every day all around the world? Do we in some way endorse the idea that in order for there to be peace there must be chaos? Do we willingly allow murder to happen in the world for some small piece of false security? Do we accept the right to kill by some while punishing it in others? Is it the belief that to kill a few will save everyone else?

On any given day people are killed in mass numbers all around the world, in some of these cases the public cries out for justice and some they sit silent, justifying it in their minds as necessary or needed in order to prevent social disorder. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) an average of 2.3 million people die in the United States alone. That equates to less than 1% of the national population. And though the center keeps statistics for various ways in which Americans die, that list does not include some very serious situations. Examples would be those Americans that die at the hands of Police, They do not reflect military deaths abroad, and they do not take into account the homeless population that die as a result of starvation or exposure.

Murder is a strong word, it is meant to differentiate to some degree the intent of the act or the circumstance of the deceased person’s condition.   But can we really differentiate the act of taking someone’s life? Can we make it all comfortable and warm by relabeling it something else? Can we pretend it doesn’t have the same affect when we call it something else? I think this is a point a lot of people miss. The result of taking another’s life is the same if we call it a “Brutal Murder” or “Justifiable Homicide”. It is still the same if committed by a man or a woman, a person of certain heritage or skin color, It is the same if we say it is in self-defense or an act of passion or temporary insanity. It is even the same if committed by a person in the course of their job or duty. This fact cannot be refuted.

There has been a steady rise in the cases of death resulted by various means while in police custody. This is a trend that is not just national but international as the world moves into a more police and military industrial occupation. It seems daily there are stories of people being beaten by police, strangled by police, shot by police, run over by police and on and on. And there seems to be this overwhelming silence to it all. There are very little “news” agencies willing to tackle a story like these, there are no “government leaders” willing to call on the issue, but there is a small tireless minority that is screaming at the top of their suppressed lungs. Organizations like CopBlock.org, who through their online site are facilitating users and subscribers who have recorded police activity and presence to post these interactions to the world. Accountability and oversight being the aims of these users and organization, it has seen an increase in users, subscribers and uploaded video.

But again where is the outcry for the victims of police brutality and the deaths mounting by these officers? How is a man with a certain dress and given a badge and weapon given a right to kill others? Can there be a difference in the actions of these officers that prohibit them from the same shame and disgust of taking another’s life? It seems there is; at least to some.

Along the same lines as Police we have mentioned the actions of military service members. Can they, through granted immunity, not be seen as murderers? Do their actions not leave the same results? How can one differentiate the results as one being beneficial or justified and another being a scourge of mankind and a reprehensible act?

The use of military force is nothing new to this world and it seems there are not many who see any way to change that course. There are the many young people who use joining a military to gain monetary footholds, to enjoy benefits paid for by others or under the impression that they will be providing a service to others and the country of their birth or citizenship. Many see it as just a stepping stone into the world post schooling and pre individual responsibility.

The carnage raised by war and the destruction raised even in times on non-war have been brushed aside and legitimized by a majority of people in the world today. Some wartime actions are seen as horrid and evil (Nazi Concentration camps) others are given a pass in history (United States Internment camps). The bombing at Pearl Harbor is seen as a precursor to war, yet the daily drone bombings in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Mali, Somalia, Algeria are seen as justifiable uses of force. It is a hypocrisy, a pharisaic belief to act as if one act is any more or less of a crime against man as the other, yet this happens daily all around the world. Why? What has happened to the human mind and spirit that we have given false protection to an immoral act in certain circumstances, we ceremoniously give certain people a free pass at murder. No questions asked, no accountability, no judgment, and no recourse.

So as I started this writing I will end it. Do Americans accept the fact that murder is committed on a grand scale every day all around the world? Do we in some way endorse the idea that in order for there to be peace there must be chaos? Do we willingly allow murder to happen in the world for some small piece of false security? Do we accept the right to kill by some while punishing it in others? Is it the belief that to kill a few will save everyone else?

What is Justice?

I was thinking about these few questions today. What is justice?  What is individual justice? Who gets to define public or social justice? These are questions that I often think about when I read comments on news stories. Everyone seems to have their own view of what justice is; what punishment would or should fit the crime. Often times these views are more brutal than the crime in which they are meant to punish, in my personal opinion. And that is exactly where this topic goes; the subjectivity of justice.

Recently a local story came across my news feed in which an adult had sexual relations with a younger person, younger being described as lower than the "legally" stipulated age at which persons can make decisions to have these relations. The comments read as if I was looking into the minds of psychopaths and sociopath's dreams. Murder him, castrate him, were the normal responses, one even read to castrate him, put his castrated member into his mouth, tie him behind a vehicle and drag him until he died. Is that justice? Would those actions be justified as a result of what he and another had conspired to do willingly and voluntarily? At what point does the attempt at justice reach revenge, vengeance or immoral means to an immoral end?

Lysander Spooner had this to say of justice;

"The science of mine and thine --- the science of justice --- is the science of all human rights; of all a man's rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is the science which alone can tell any man what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot, have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing the rights of any other person.
It is the science of peace; and the only science of peace; since it is the science which alone can tell us on what conditions mankind can live in peace, or ought to live in peace, with each other.
These conditions are simply these: viz., first, that each man shall do, towards every other, all that justice requires him to do; as, for example, that he shall pay his debts, that he shall return borrowed or stolen property to its owner, and that he shall make reparation for any injury he may have done to the person or property of another.
The second condition is, that each man shall abstain from doing to another, anything which justice forbids him to do; as, for example, that he shall abstain from committing theft, robbery, arson, murder, or any other crime against the person or property of another."

The combined idea of justice in the public eye seems to be one of three outcomes; Incarceration, death, or monetary punishment and of course a combination of all three. All of these though come from one enforcement monopoly; The State. What moral right does the state have to do these things? Is it the transferred authority of the voting populace? How does one account for the individual preference of justice over the majority? If a man has a moral philosophy to not do harm to another, is it right that a man who has damaged his property be then harmed by the state, not by the victim’s wishes but by mandated "justice"? Does the individual have no say as to what should be seen as just in his eyes, whether that means to let the perpetrator go or to punish them as he wishes? Under our current system the right to exact justice by individuals is made illegal and a monopoly has risen to take control of such matters. The American legal system, in all its dysfunction, has created a way for government to gain off of the misdeeds of others even when no harm has befallen the state in the matter. This is where the question comes in of what moral right does the state have to punish anyone for crimes in which it was not harmed? Why is there mandated minimum sentencing for crimes in which there are no victims? Why is justice taken from the hands of those involved and given to a system that benefit from the results of its own rules and laws?

An eye for an eye, Is that justice?

In an attempt to explain personal views of justice some will say they believe in the old adage of "an eye for an eye". Can equal punishment be considered equal justice? If a person was to kill a man's spouse, and the victimized man believed in equal punishment to the action, would the killing of an innocent person who is married to the aggressor be justice? Could it not be said of the spouse, who has now been killed in response to the death of another, even though they had no knowledge or part in the act is somehow responsible for the act of their spouse in order to avenge justice to the victim, are they now not a victim themselves? Does this circle ever end? 

Can the attempted correction of a wrong be justified by preforming another wrong?
Is it justice for a man guilty only of selling a plant disapproved of by government to be sentenced to a life in a cage? Is it justice for a mother who provides pain reliving medicine to her child to be sentenced to a life in jail, all because the medicine is not approved by a government agency? Is it justice that a man or woman who have engaged in consenual sexual relations be punished, because of an arbitrary age of consent imposed by someone outside that relationship? Is it Justice that any amount of people are barred from being united in marriage by law, punishable by state enforcement?

Can Justice ever really be achieved? Can full restitution for any act of aggression really be made? Is it a subjective view on what would be justified compensation? Can an act performed in the name of justice be an injustice in itself? How can one ensure just compensation is made without further aggressing against another or against the primary aggressor?

There can be no justice in a world of unscrupulous men.

Again Lysander Spooner, 

"If there be such a natural principle as justice, it is necessarily the highest, and consequently the only and universal, law for all those matters to which it is naturally applicable. And, consequently, all human legislation is simply and always an assumption of authority and dominion, where no right of authority or dominion exists. It is, therefore, simply and always an intrusion, an absurdity, an usurpation, and a crime.
On the other hand, if there be no such natural principle as justice, there can be no such thing as dishonesty; and no possible act of either force or fraud, committed by one man against the person or property of another, can be said to be unjust or dishonest; or be complained of, or prohibited, or punished as such. In short, if there be no such principle as justice, there can be no such acts as crimes; and all the professions of governments, so called, that they exist, either in whole or in part, for the punishment or prevention of crimes, are professions that they exist for the punishment or prevention of what never existed, nor ever can exist. Such professions are therefore confessions that, so far as crimes are concerned, governments have no occasion to exist; that there is nothing for them to do, and that there is nothing that they can do. They are confessions that the governments exist for the punishment and prevention of acts that are, in their nature, simple impossibilities."