The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result primarily from the motivations and actions of individuals and their self interest. Austrian school theorists hold that economic theory should be exclusively derived from basic principles of human action.
Friedrich August von Hayek, often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian-British economist and political philosopher who made contributions to economics, political philosophy, psychology, intellectual history, and other fields. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for work on money and economic fluctuations, and the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena. His account of how prices communicate information is widely regarded as an important contribution to economics that led to him receiving the prize.
James McGill Buchanan Jr. was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work, The Calculus of Consent, co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962. He continued to develop the theory, eventually receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest, utility maximization, and other non-wealth-maximizing considerations affect their decision-making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute as well as of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) and MPS president from 1984 to 1986, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and professor at George Mason University.
Neoliberalism, also neo-liberalism, is a term used to signify the late-20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism, which had fallen into decline following the Second World War. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is often used pejoratively. In scholarly use, the term is frequently undefined or used to characterize a vast variety of phenomena.
The expression military–industrial complex (MIC) describes the relationship between a country's military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. A driving factor behind the relationship between the military and the defense-minded corporations is that both sides benefit—one side from obtaining weapons, and the other from being paid to supply them. The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the armed forces of the United States, where the relationship is most prevalent due to close links among defense contractors, the Pentagon, and politicians. The expression gained popularity after a warning of the relationship's detrimental effects, in the farewell address of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961.
Chalmers Ashby Johnson was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967 to 1973 and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972. He was also president and co-founder with Steven Clemons of the Japan Policy Research Institute, an organization that promotes public education about Japan and Asia.
The Road to Serfdom is a book written between 1940 and 1943 by Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek. In the book, Hayek "[warns] of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning." He further argues that the abandonment of individualism and classical liberalism inevitably leads to a loss of freedom, the creation of an oppressive society, the tyranny of a dictator, and the serfdom of the individual. Hayek challenged the view, popular among British Marxists, that fascism was a capitalist reaction against socialism. He argued that fascism, Nazism, and state-socialism had common roots in central economic planning and empowering the state over the individual.
Daniel "Dan" T. Griswold is a senior research Fellow and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He was previously the president of the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones, an organization based in Washington DC. Prior to NAFTZ, he served as the director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies, where he authored numerous studies on trade and immigration policy. Before joining Cato in 1997, Griswold served as press secretary for Congressman Vin Weber of Minnesota, and later for 12 years as editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph. He has written for major newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, appeared on CNN, PBS, C-SPAN and other national TV and radio networks, and testified before congressional committees. He was born in a small Midwestern town, graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a bachelor's degree in journalism and economics, and received a master's degree in the Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics. Griswold has written extensively on such subjects as immigration reform and the U.S. balance of trade. He also authored the book Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization, published in 2009. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, in Northern Virginia.
The Mercatus Center is an American libertarian, free-market-oriented non-profit think tank. The Mercatus Center is located at the George Mason University campus, however the organization is privately funded and its employees are independent of the university. It is directed by Daniel M. Rothschild and its board is chaired by American economist Tyler Cowen. The Center works with policy experts, lobbyists, and government officials to connect academic learning with real-world practice. Taking its name from the Latin word for market, the center advocates free-market approaches to public policy. During the George W. Bush administration's campaign to reduce government regulation, The Wall Street Journal reported, "14 of the 23 rules the White House chose for its 'hit list' to eliminate or modify were Mercatus entries".
Lawrence Henry White is an American economics professor at George Mason University who teaches graduate level monetary theory and policy. He is considered an authority on the history and theory of free banking. His writings support the abolition of the Federal Reserve System and the promotion of private and competitive banking.
Peter Joseph Boettke is an American economist of the Austrian School. He is currently a professor of economics and philosophy at George Mason University; the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism, vice president for research, and director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at GMU.
Russell David "Russ" Roberts is an American-Israeli economist. He is currently a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. He is known for communicating economic ideas in understandable terms as host of the EconTalk podcast.
Steven G. Horwitz was an American economist of the Austrian School. Horwitz was the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in the department of economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. In 2017, he retired as the Dana Professor of Economics Emeritus at St. Lawrence University.
Peter T. Leeson is an American economist and the Duncan Black Professor of Economics and Law at George Mason University. In 2012 Big Think listed him among "Eight of the World's Top Young Economists". He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Floyd Arthur "Baldy" Harper was an American academic, economist and writer who was best known for founding the Institute for Humane Studies in 1961.
Constitutional economics is a research program in economics and constitutionalism that has been described as explaining the choice "of alternative sets of legal-institutional-constitutional rules that constrain the choices and activities of economic and political agents". This extends beyond the definition of "the economic analysis of constitutional law" and is distinct from explaining the choices of economic and political agents within those rules, a subject of orthodox economics. Instead, constitutional economics takes into account the impacts of political economic decisions as opposed to limiting its analysis to economic relationships as functions of the dynamics of distribution of marketable goods and services.
Garett Jones is an American economist and author. His research pertains to the fields of macroeconomics, monetary policy, IQ in relation to productivity, short-term business cycles, and economic development. He is an associate professor at George Mason University and the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center.
Mario J. Rizzo is an American economist of the Austrian School. He serves as an associate professor of economics at New York University.
Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada is a non-fiction book written by Vancouver-based Donald Gutstein, media critic and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University's School of Communication. Gutstein's work focuses on links between business, the media, and politics.
United States militarism refers to the reliance of the United States on its military force to pursue foreign policy goals that can be achieved more effectively by other means. Militarism has been defined as the tendency to regard military efficiency as the supreme ideal of the state, overshadowing all other interests. In a militarist society, military institutions and ways are ranked above the ways of civilian life, and military mentality is carried over into the civilian sphere." Since the end of the Cold War, the US military has continued to grow even without any existential threat to the US, as it currently spends more than 40% of all military expenditures worldwide and has military forces stationed in more than 150 countries. The ongoing War on Terror and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have all contributed significantly to the current prominent role of the US Department of Defense in American politics. Administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have also ensured that military leaders dominate positions related to national security, to the detriment of diplomatic solutions with Iran, North Korea, or the Middle East. The recent administrations, as early as President Bill Clinton, have thus placed the Department of Defense in a position of unprecedented power and influence.
