Gene Epstein (born 1944) is an American economist. He worked as the economics editor of Barron's Magazine from 1993 to 2018. [1] He calls himself a follower of the Austrian school of economics [2] and is an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. [3]
Epstein earned a BA from Brandeis University and an MA in economics from the New School. He taught economics at St. John's University and the City University of New York. He wrote a book called Making Money in Commodities in 1976 [4] and later worked as a senior economist for the New York Stock Exchange. [5]
In 1993 he became economics editor and columnist of "Economic Beat" for Barron's Magazine . His book, Econospinning, was published in 2006. [6] The book was met with some controversy in the blogosphere after Tyler Cowen mentioned it in his blog Marginal Revolution. [7]
He now runs a monthly debate series called The Soho Forum, [1] which "features topics of special interest to libertarians and aims to enhance social and professional ties within the NYC libertarian community." [5] [8] In its most widely viewed debate, Gene himself debated Richard D. Wolff on the issues of socialism and capitalism. [9] As of March 2024, the recording of the debate has been viewed over 6 million times. [10]
Gene Epstein currently resides in downtown Manhattan with his wife, the artist Hisako Kobayashi.[ citation needed ]
Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership. An anarcho-capitalist philosophy extends the concept of ownership to include control of private property as part of the self, and, in some cases, control of other people as private property. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of goods and services. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society a system of private property would still exist, and would be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies that were selected by property owners, whose ownership rights or claims would be enforced by private defence agencies and/or insurance companies. These agencies or companies would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police, similar to a state apparatus. Some anarcho-capitalist authors have argued that slavery is compatible with anarcho-capitalist ideals.
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.
The economic calculation problem is a criticism of using central economic planning as a substitute for market-based allocation of the factors of production. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in his 1920 article "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" and later expanded upon by Friedrich Hayek.
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, particularly its right-wing strands, and was a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism. He wrote over twenty books on political theory, history, economics, and other subjects.
Henry Stuart Hazlitt was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, that is a center for Austrian economics, right-wing libertarian thought and the paleolibertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements in the United States. It is named after the economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) and promotes his version of heterodox Misesian Austrian economics.
Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell was a Swedish economist of the Stockholm school. He was professor at Uppsala University and Lund University.
Mark Thornton is an American economist of the Austrian School. He has written on the topic of prohibition of drugs, the economics of the American Civil War, and the "Skyscraper Index". He is a Senior Fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama and a Research Fellow with the Independent Institute.
Criticism of socialism is any critique of socialist economics and socialist models of organization and their feasibility, as well as the political and social implications of adopting such a system. Some critiques are not necessarily directed toward socialism as a system but rather toward the socialist movement, parties, or existing states. Some critics consider socialism to be a purely theoretical concept that should be criticized on theoretical grounds, such as in the economic calculation problem and the socialist calculation debate, while others hold that certain historical examples exist and that they can be criticized on practical grounds. Because there are many types of socialism, most critiques are focused on a specific type of socialism, that of the command economy and the experience of Soviet-type economies that may not apply to all forms of socialism as different models of socialism conflict with each other over questions of property ownership, economic coordination and how socialism is to be achieved. Critics of specific models of socialism might be advocates of a different type of socialism.
Ralph Raico was an American libertarian historian of European liberalism and a professor of history at Buffalo State College.
Jesús Huerta de Soto Ballester is a Spanish economist of the Austrian School. He is a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at King Juan Carlos University of Madrid, Spain and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute.
Robert Patrick Murphy is an American economist. Murphy is research assistant professor with the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. He has been affiliated with Laffer Associates, the Pacific Research Institute, the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the Independent Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Fraser Institute.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian–American Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism and the power of consumers. He is best known for his work on praxeology studies comparing communism and capitalism.
Walter Edward Block is an American Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He was the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans and a former senior fellow of the non-profit think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to libertarianism:
Calculation in kind or calculation in-natura is a way of valuating resources and a system of accounting that uses disaggregated physical magnitudes as opposed to a common unit of calculation. As the basis for a socialist economy, it was proposed to replace money and financial calculation. In an in-kind economy products are produced for their use values and accounted in physical terms. By contrast, in money-based economies, commodities are produced for their exchange value and accounted in monetary terms.
David Gordon is an American libertarian philosopher and intellectual historian influenced by Murray Rothbard's views of economics. He is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank, and is the editor of The Mises Review.
Throughout modern history, a variety of perspectives on capitalism have evolved based on different schools of thought.
The socialist calculation debate, sometimes known as the economic calculation debate, was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation given the absence of the law of value, money, financial prices for capital goods and private ownership of the means of production. More specifically, the debate was centered on the application of economic planning for the allocation of the means of production as a substitute for capital markets and whether or not such an arrangement would be superior to capitalism in terms of efficiency and productivity.
Jörg Guido Hülsmann is a German-born economist who studies issues related to money, banking, monetary policy, macroeconomics, and financial markets. Hülsmann is professor of economics at the University of Angers’ School of Law, Economics, and Management.
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