Tuesday, March 10, 2015

GETTING MORE RADICAL 'The Free Market' is now 'The Austrian'

Congratulation to the Mises Institute for renaming their flagship publication, The Austrian.

Mises Institute president Jeff Deist explains the move:
“I actually believe in the free market.” President Barack Obama, Phoenix, August 2013 
“I’m a free market welfare state guy.” Paul Krugman, CNBC interview, July 2012 
For more than thirty years The Free Market has been the Mises Institute’s flagship monthly publication for our members. Today we introduce The Austrian, a bolder and more robust version of what you’ve known for decades.
It’s enlightening these days to hear everyone from Obama and Krugman to Putin and Hollande proclaim their belief in the superiority of free markets (invariably adding several qualifying provisos, of course). Even Bono from U2 has had a change of heart. Only Mr. Piketty appears to be clinging (tenuously) to his support for outright central planning.
So it appears we’ve made great strides in the rhetorical battle when it comes to the beauty and power of markets to vastly improve the human condition. We are all free-marketers now, and some of us actually mean it. 
Thirty years ago, however, our outspoken support for free markets was radical. And since our beginning the Mises Institute has advocated a free market in everything. But today the  term has been diluted through overuse and misuse, as demonstrated by Messrs. Obama and Krugman. It no longer captures the radical and uncompromising nature of the Institute and its members. A name change for The Free Market was in order.
When Mises died in 1973, “Austrian” was an adjective and a loose term of convenience describing the great scholars (and scholarship) of the Austrian school of economics.
Today, thanks to phenomenal growth in the Austrian school, one can simply say, “I’m an Austrian” when speaking in libertarian or academic circles. “Austrian” has become a noun!
Our new moniker, The Austrian, goes to the heart and soul of what we are: an organization dedicated to the brilliant scholarship of Austrian economics.
Mises is our touchstone, Rothbard our animating spirit, and the classical liberal tradition our north star.
We will publish The Austrian every other month, and deliver it to your mailbox or email inbox. Each issue will feature provocative articles by cutting edge libertarian and Austrian thinkers, conversational interviews with leading business people and intellectual entrepreneurs, reviews by David Gordon, and cultural commentary by guest writers. You won’t find this kind of radical, politically incorrect content anywhere else. 
We hope you enjoy The Austrian, and we’re grateful to have you as a member. Please let us know what you think (via contact@mises.org), and encourage your friends and family to join the Mises Institute.

The first issue of The Austrian is online here.

4 comments:

  1. Cowardly concession.

    First we retreated from the word "liberal" which now means socialist and then the word "capitalist" which now means cronyist. The word "libertarian" is choking for air as groups from all sides struggle to redefine it as one flavor or another of statism-lite.

    And now we're ceremoniously lowering our flag from the widely used common noun phrase "free market." We'll just cede "free market" to the statists to redefine to mean central planning. Because Barack Obama and Paul Krugman fancy it so. While we make a sad, futile attempt to escape future redefinition by retreating to the proper noun "Austrian." Pathetic.

    As the cultural "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery" campaign redefines words and phrases of liberty as their opposite in order to eradicate the very concepts of freedom from the language, maybe it's of some importance we fight that. How about we put a stake in the ground with the phrase "free market" because the words "free" and "market" are like kinda foundational to our whole philosophy.

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    1. News flash: "free" anything has been meaningless since FDR successfully paraded around "freedom from want," in tandem with the destruction of "liberal."

      Lack of a time machine does not make one a coward.

      They haven't taken "libertarian" yet, and thanks to Ron Paul, they will waste a lot of energy trying and failing.

      Only a few short years ago, if you said "libertarian" in public, the immediate reaction of most people would be, "Oh, those crazy people who just want drugs and prostitutes!"

      I can't remember the last time I heard that. Even the mainstream media has conceded to linking "libertarian" with anti-war and anti-bankster views. They've probably never even heard of the non-aggression principle, but that's not a war of words we're going to win in the land of the boobeoisie.

      The new smears are trying to twist "libertarian" into "isolationist" and "gold bug." That hasn't particularly worked because those terms already had established meanings. It's more of an attempt to link it with conservatives that just want to go backwards and maintain the all too convenient left-right false paradigm.

      It's not working.

      Delete
  2. Doesn't the word Austrian have a statist root?

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  3. Austrian sounds statist to me.

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