The Human Action Podcast

Dr. Ron Paul joins Jeff Deist to talk about his decades as a congressman fighting the Fed, his efforts to legalize the use of gold and silver as untaxed currency, and his involvement with sound money initiatives in states like Arizona and Wyoming. Plus, Dr. Paul shares some great anecdotes about Reagan's Gold Commission, Alan Greenspan, and Paul Volcker.

The US criminal justice system is hopelessly broken, riddled with bad incentives and bad actors. In the wake of recent police shootings, Dr. Ed Stringham joins Jeff Deist to help us understand how and why private security firms could create vastly better outcomes for crime victims, society, and even perpetrators. This is a fascinating discussion you won't want to miss. Recommended reading: Private...

Arguments for a "rules based" Fed are gaining momentum on both the political Left and Right— and even among some libertarians. Would the adoption of ideas like NGDP targeting and the "Taylor Rule" really make make the Fed less dangerous? Would they be an improvement on the Fed's current discretionary approach? Can monetary "rules" really contain booms and busts, or would Yellen and Co. simply brea...

David Gordon joins Jeff to consider the important philosophy—and philosophers—libertarians need to know. Starting with Mises's influences in Human Action, Dr. Gordon moves through the 20th century with a great discussion of John Rawls and Robert Nozick. He also suggests the books that Austro-libertarians need to read, even if they're primarily interested in politics or economics.

Dr. Joe Salerno and Karl-Friedrich Israel join Jeff Deist to discuss Mises's Human Action, perhaps the greatest treatise on economics ever written. But the book can be daunting for many, given its length and the sheer enormity of the systematic thought it presents. Our guests break down how and why everyone should read it, echoing Mises's belief that economics was the proper area of study for ever...

More than 20 years after his death, Murray Rothbard continues to publish new books! Our guest Patrick Newman is the editor of a Rothbard manuscript dating to the 1970s entitled Roots of the Modern State, which the Mises Institute will release as a book later this year. Rothbard's topic is the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he doesn't disappoint. Murray exposes the p...

The media insists the US economy has recovered from the 2008 crash. Equities markets have enjoyed a bull run since the election. Housing prices are rising in expensive coastal cities. Government offices continue to report that GDP is growing while inflation remains in check. And insiders like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon insist that American consumers and businesses are upbeat about the future....

The great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek celebrated a birthday earlier this week, while the prominent monetarist (and Fed historian) Allan Meltzer passed away the same day. Joining us to discuss monetarism is our friend Bob Murphy, who lays out the central tenets of the Chicago school and its godfather Milton Friedman. At its heart, Bob explains, monetarism is a cousin of Keynesianism—one advo...

Dr. Hoppe's book The Economics and Ethics of Private Property is among the most important modern contributions to libertarian thought. Hoppe, like Rothbard, connects laissez-faire economics to normative libertarian theory with laserlike precision and inexorable logic. Property isn't just a social construct determined by legislative fiat, but rather a necessary component of self-ownership and the f...

Mises Institute Fellow Jonathan Newman, author of the article "Neil Ty, the Scientism Guy" (https://Mises.org/Scientism), joins Jeff Deist to discuss the recent March for Science—and how politicized pseudoscience peddled by the likes of Bill Nye silences debate and drives dubious public policy.

The Mises Institute's hometown of Auburn, Alabama made national news this week as Richard Spencer was allowed to speak on the university's campus following a court ruling. The event was a win for free speech, but also revealed Spencer's affinity for socialism and the state. Instead of being a dangerous "thought criminal", is Richard Spencer really just a naïve statist? Of course, the best way to w...

Danielle DiMartino Booth: Inside the FedJeff Deist interviews Danielle DiMartino Booth. Danielle DiMartino Booth is a former Dallas Fed staffer and author of the new book 'Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America'. She joins Jeff Deist to talk about her years watching Ivy League PhDs make gross and fundamental errors in an almost comically cloistered environment. Hav...

Our guest this week is Caitlin Long, president and chairman of the smart contracts platform company Symbiont. Caitlin is a twenty-year Wall Street veteran, and now she's turned her focus toward using blockchain technology to revolutionize the business world. Caitlin and Jeff discuss how blockchain technology could vastly reduce the role of middlemen in all kinds of everyday transactions, obviating...

This week, Theresa May made Brexit official, triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Our friend Godfrey Bloom, a legendary voice for British sovereignty and a founding member of UKIP, joins Mises Weekends to discuss what happens next. Is globalism truly on the decline? And does the rise of Marine Le Pen mean Frexit may also be possible?

Our guest this week is Professor Per Bylund, a man who studies entrepreneurship for a living. Why is the role of the entrepreneur—the individual who risks capital, time, and energy to build a business—almost completely disregarded by most economists? Does the Austrian focus on individual human action explain why business schools are far more willing to embrace Austrian principles? Can real-world e...

One of the highlights of our Austrian Economics Research Conference is the interaction between scholars and entrepreneurs, and the new ideas that such conversations spark. Here business consultant Hunter Hastings outlines how technological innovation is already making centralized "designed" systems obsolete, and how artificial intelligence opens up a whole new era of spontaneous order.

David Hart, editor and librarian at Liberty Fund, joined us in Auburn today to deliver a dynamite lecture on his favorite subject: Frederic Bastiat the radical. We think we know Bastiat from The Law, but his work in economics and social theory actually spans thousands of pages. And he was a thoroughgoing radical in his personal and professional life, both in his Basque hometown of Bayonne and in t...

Our show this weekend features Overstock.com’s Patrick Byrne, who spoke at our event last weekend in San Diego. Byrne, the rare philosopher-capitalist, discusses the historical origins of liberty and explains the greatest threats to it that exist today.

Dr. Kevin Gutzman is a history professor at Western Connecticut State University, a New York Times best-selling author, and one of the leading Constitutional scholars in the country today. He and Jeff talk about his new book, 'Thomas Jefferson—Revolutionary: A Radical's Struggle to Remake America'. Dr. Gutzman discusses some of the overlooked ways Jefferson shaped America, and how his radical view...

This weekend, we welcome back Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center and fearless advocate for political decentralization. Michael joins us next weekend at our event in San Diego (see Mises.org/Events), so we decided to ask him about the burgeoning CalExit movement and the Left's newfound appreciation for secession. Think California couldn't survive as an independent country? Think...

Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne, the keynote speaker at our upcoming event in San Diego, is a brilliant innovator and freedom advocate. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Stanford, but understands e-commerce and blockchain technology like an engineer. He also understands Austrian economics, and courageously uses his public profile to make the Hayekian case for a decentralized political, economi...

Brutus, writing in 'The Antifederalist Papers', had this to say about judges: There is no power above them, to control any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon fee...

Jeff Deist and Tom Woods discuss everything happening with Donald Trump in Washington, DC—especially the Left-Progressive reaction to it—and analyze Trump from a libertarian perspective.

Our guest this weekend is John Tamny, a writer and editor at Real Clear Markets (RealCleearMarkets.com) and 'Forbes'. Jeff Deist and John dissect Trump's economics, especially Trump's reflexive trade protectionism and fetish for exports over imports. They also talk about the policies Trump might get right, especially when it comes to the Fed. John has a great Misesian take on everything the new ad...

We've all heard the term crony capitalism, but what does it mean exactly? We know it involves using government to enrich certain interests, through contracts, lobbying, and rent-seeking. But, crony capitalism is far more: it is a systematic distortion of real capitalism, from local restaurants and real estate all the way up to global commodities and FOREX markets. Here to consider all the angles i...