Economics

In-depth articles on economics exploring key policies in healthcare economics, agriculture subsidies, trade tariffs, government subsidies, and monetary systems — with critical examination of their broader impacts on public health, individual liberty, free markets, economic freedom, and the urgent need for policy reform.

Brownstone Institute provides alternative perspectives on how economic interventions affect society, from farm subsidies distorting food systems and health outcomes to monetary policy enabling control, tariff effects on global trade and liberty, and pathways to restore free-market principles and personal freedoms.

All economics articles are translated into multiple languages to support global readers, open international dialogue, and promote evidence-based reform worldwide.

The Historian of Decline: Ludwig von Mises’s Relevance Today

By / / , , / 22 minute read / Articles
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The mistake we made was in believing that there is logic to history. There isn’t. There is only the march of good ideas and bad, and the forever competition between the two. And this is a central message of Mises’s 1954 overlooked masterwork Theory and History. Here he offers a devastating rebuttal to determinism of all sorts, whether from old liberals or Hegel or Fukuyama. 

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The Destruction of the American Middle Class

The Destruction of the American Middle Class

By / / , , / 7 minute read / Articles
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Since money-printing went into permanent high gear after the dotcom crash in 2000, the top 1% of households have gained $20 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth. Likewise, the top 0.1% or 131,000 households at the tippy top of the economic ladder have gained $88 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth.

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laborers

The Dignity of Labor Requires Freedom and Truth

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The same dynamic that Jesus encountered in Nazareth held true today; bringing “glad tidings to the poor” is a popular slogan but very often those who embrace it most quickly care little for being called out for their own sins which prevent delivery of these glad tidings. Sadly, this is precisely what has happened to those whose political history has been tied up with what was once called the labor movement.

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deep state

Is McKinsey & Company Part of the Deep State? 

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The administrative state is horrible and it deserves to be called out. The next President can and should cut the administrative state in half (one could do so with no loss in services). But reading When McKinsey Comes to Town I realized that management consultants likely make up a larger share of the deep state than bureaucrats. 

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ten trillion dollars

$10 Trillion Stolen Right Under Our Noses

By / / , / 6 minute read / Articles
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All of the “Covid Relief” numbers are far too big to understand unless one has a good numbers sense and sits quietly in a room with some blank paper and does some ciphering. People thought it was a good idea to spend limitlessly and futilely on Grandma without considering the costs to her adult children and grandkids. Hey, Grandma used to make us cookies; she’s worth whatever we’ve got. And even what we don’t got. Even if we can’t, through the full range of “mitigation,” keep her alive for another two months in a nursing home, where she’s seldom visited. If she has to live in isolation and die alone to “stop the spread,” so be it.

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