National conservatives believe that the allocation of resources brought about by the free market is in fact a less-efficient allocation — one that is worse for the country — than is the allocation that would be brought about by their industrial policy.
Economics
Prices and Costs of Production in a Free-Market
In a free market, the prices of products tend to be governed by their costs of production.
Wage Rates Under Capitalism
In a free market, within the limit of his abilities, each person chooses that job which he believes offers him the best combination of money and nonmonetary considerations. In so doing, he simultaneously acts for his own maximum well-being and for that of the consumers who buy the ultimate products his labor helps to produce.
Foreign Investment: Protectionism vs. Industrialization (5 of 5)
The prerequisite for more economic equality in the world is industrialization. And this is possible only through increased capital investment, increased capital accumulation. You may be astonished that I have not mentioned a measure which is considered a prime method...
Commodity Speculation in a Free-Market
Speculative activity, of course, is not limited to anticipating just future scarcities. Rather, it seeks in general to balance consumption and production over time by accumulating stocks of commodities and regulating their rate of consumption.
Ludwig von Mises: Defender of Capitalism
Ludwig Von Mises is important because his teachings are necessary to the preservation of capitalism and thus of civilization.
Foreign Investment: The Problem of Domestic Capital Accumulation (4 of 5)
What is lacking in order to make the developing countries as prosperous as the United States is only one thing: capital-and, of course, the freedom to employ it under the discipline of the market and not the discipline of the government.
Foreign Investment: Expropriation of Foreign Capital (3 of 5)
Foreign investment is made in the expectation that it will not be expropriated. Nobody would invest anything if he knew in advance that somebody would expropriate his investments. At the time when these foreign investments were made in the nineteenth century, and at...
Global Prices in a Free Market
In a free market, there is a tendency toward the establishment of a uniform price for the same good throughout the world.
The Impossibility of Socialism
Socialism as a means for improving the condition of man is impossible.
Foreign Investment: A Great Historical Event of the 19th Century (2 of 5)
Without capital investment, it would have been necessary for nations less developed than Great Britain to start with the methods and technology the British had started with at the beginning of the 18th century, and slowly try to imitate what the British had done.
Final Thoughts on the Uniformity of Profit Principle
The uniformity-of-profit principle describes a tendency, never an actually existing state of affairs.
Foreign Investment: Standard of Living and Capital Investment (1 of 5)
The amount of capital invested per unit of the population is greater in the so-called advanced nations than in the developing nations.
Profits and the Repeal of Price Controls & Government Subsidies
Farm subsidies are a way the government achieves artificially high prices. They are an illustration of legal minimum prices—that is, prices below which the government prevents the producers from selling.
The Profit Motive as an Agent of Innovation and Progress, Part 2
The operation of the tendency toward a uniform rate of profit requires that high profits be made by continuously introducing productive innovations in advance of competitors.
The Profit Motive as an Agent of Innovation and Progress, Part 1
How the profit motive acts to make production steadily increase in a free market, and becomes an agent of continuous economic progress.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: Profit Seeking Benefits Consumers in a Free Market
The real advocates of the consumers—their virtual agents—are businessmen seeking profit, not the leaders of groups trying to restrict the freedom of businessmen to earn profits.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: Production for Profit is Production for Use
In total opposition to the misguided efforts of the Marxists to contrast production for profit with “production for use,” the fact is that production for profit is production for use.
Interventionism vs Capitalism: The Myth of the “Third-way” (4 of 4)
The idea that there is a third system — between socialism and capitalism, as its supporters say — a system as far away from socialism as it is from capitalism but that retains the advantages and avoids the disadvantages of each — is pure nonsense.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: How Profit Allocates Capital Across Industries
The uniformity-of-profit principle explains how the activities of all the separate business enterprises are harmoniously coordinated so that capital is not invested excessively in the production of some items while leaving the production of other items unprovided for.
Capitalism’s Visible Hand: The Uniformity of Profit Principle
The best way to begin to understand the functioning of the price system, and thus the full nature of the dependence of the division of labor on capitalism, is by understanding the following very simple and fundamental principle. Namely, there is a tendency in a free market toward the establishment of a uniform rate of profit on capital invested in all the different branches of industry.
Interventionism vs Capitalism: A Historical Example (3 of 4)
Analyzing interventionism during the First World War in Germany and England.
Interventionism vs Capitalism: The Price Control (2 of 4)
Let us consider one example of interventionism, very popular in many countries and tried again and again by many governments, especially in times of inflation. I refer to price control. Governments usually resort to price control when they have inflated the money...
Economics of Bitcoin (BTC): Closer to Pyramid Than a Ponzi Scheme
Bitcoin Volatility is a Feature, Not a Bug.