Economics
This is a collection of economic resources and links introducing neoclassical and Austrian economics that I have watched and found insightful or an honest representation of a central economic perspective.
A video on this list does not necessarily mean that I support the entire message delivered, only that I consider it a good resource presenting a given topic.
This is mainly a list of videos, but books and articles are also welcome here.
Make a pull-request if you want to add something!
Introduction to Economics
Free to Choose, part 1
https://youtu.be/dngqR9gcDDw PBS, Milton Friedman, 1980
What has capitalism given us, what role does it play in our lives, both as consumers and producers? How does capitalism coordinate production?
Applying Economics to American History
https://youtu.be/m-LJ3wZjD4I Economics for High School Students, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., 2009
What are the historical sources of our wealth? Is it wealth that drives politics or the other way around?
Introduction to Austrian Economics
Subjective value
https://youtu.be/c-rCenyYnyk Mises U, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, 2015
Entrepreneurship
https://youtu.be/Mtmn4-Wgubw Mises U, Peter G. Klein, 2021
Division of Labor
https://youtu.be/2pMPssX3RG0 Mises U, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, 2012
Austrian Capital Theory
https://youtu.be/aasphcB85IQ Mises U, Shawn Ritenour, 2019
How do you make a flourless chocolate cake, can you scale this production, and what do you need if you want to scale it?
Money
https://youtu.be/B-70fyIzgLk Mises U, Lucas M. Engelhardt, 2016
What role does money play in the economy, and why is it useful? How money arises in the market, without government intervention and what qualities money should have: divisible, durable, fungible, scarce, portable, widely accepted. Also has a short discussion on the consequences of money printing and how it distorts prices, salaries, and production, thus introducing some content of Austrian business cycle theory and the cantillong effect.
Advanced Austrian Economics
Austrian Economics has made two significant contributions to the science of economics: "Austrian business cycle theory" about the dynamic effects of excessive money printing, and "calculation and socialism" about the role that prices play in disseminating and condensing information about scarcity and superior production methods.
Calculation and socialism
https://youtu.be/KseRuyAjlHY Mises U, Joseph T. Salerno, 2013
Austrian business cycle theory
https://youtu.be/7cs490NJr5g Mises U, Jonathan Newman, 2021
Why you should blame central banks for the current situation of scarcity.
https://youtu.be/9a-eUKjnDfM Mises U, Tom Woods, 2009
Short summary of Austrian business cycle theory. Good analogy about a builder with a bag of bricks.
Austrian Alternatives to Conventional Economic Statistics
https://youtu.be/9x5djkog1xI Mises U, Jonathan Newman, 2019
What are mainstream eocnomic statistical indicators missing according to an Austrian economic perspective?
Different types of goods from an economic perspective
https://youtu.be/9VMNJowUoGk Mises U, Walter Block, 2011
Are there certain kinds of goods that can only be provided by the government, or are there private alternatives to their provision? Walter Block on externalities and different types of goods, excludability and rivalrousness. Good speech showing the difference between neoclassical and Austrian approaches.
Only the Austrians Understand Interest Rates
https://youtu.be/tDkNPNSgiaY Mises Circle, Robert P. Murphy, 2010
Good parallel between oil prices and interest rates
Libertarianism
Walter Block, Tom Woods, and Murray Rothbard are all excellent proponents of libertarianism. The latter two are good at addressing libertarianism with an emotional approach.
What is libertarianism?
https://youtu.be/WGVtgIWDrMc Walter Block, 2010
How do you derive what the libertarian position on something is? Excellent quick overview of libertarian positions on all matter politics.
The history of Murray Rothbard's Political Philosophical Journey
https://youtu.be/M3HatEn0BjI National Libertarian Party Convention, 1981
From Murray Rothbard's experience with public schools to widespread communism in the Jewish intellectual environment to his father as his only libertarian ally to a fringe philosophy club called the Bastiats where Rothbard goes from mainstream republican, to extremist Republican minarchist to libertarian anarchist. Stories about Ludvig von Mises and the hijacking of the rightwing by National Review by the New Right in the end-50s who forces Rothbard and allies out of the movement.
Good insight into the fall and rise of libertarian thoughts in America. Mentions personal meetings with Ayn Rand, William Buckley, Ludwig von Mises, and Ron Paul. Foresees private companies taking over spaceflight and predicts that Ron Regan's gold commission will not recommend a return to the gold standard. Lauds Ayn Rand's philosophy but denounces her personality and following as a cult.
Humorous, insightful, warm.
What is the connection between libertarianism and Austrian economics?
https://youtu.be/DStLhWMRERM Mises U, 2013
Tom Woods describes how an Austrian analysis leads to an libertarian value system, provided you want what's best for people, provided you have a utilitarian perspective where other people's happiness matter to you.
Why is Mises University a great community, and how can you use the knowledge that you here to make the world a better place? Talks about the futility and frustration that students of Austrian economics might face when confronted with the realities of politics, how this also applied for the founders of the economic school of thought at the turn of the previous century. How do we shape our lives in the knowledge of an inescapable catastrophe?
Money
History and causes of inflation
Dr. Martenson's Crash Course, Chapter 10, 2009. Important resource for me in realizing that inflation is a deliberate policy, not a force of nature. We don't have to live in a world of inflation, we can escape it.
How an economy grows and why it crashes
https://riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/How-an-Economy-Grows-and-Why-It-Crashes-2010.pdf or https://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X
Irwin Schiff and Peter Schiff, 2010
A cartoon describing the conception of an economy from a "state of nature". Especially the introduction is good. Later on it comments on specific and current economic questions which may not be as timeless as the introduction. Heavy emphasis on the role of money.
Public Choice
Public Choice Theory is the analysis of the political decision process through the lens of economics and incentives.
Political Decentralization as a Road to Anarcho-Capitalism
https://youtu.be/QuXZJibu4zk Mises U, Ryan McMaken, 2021
Praxeology
Praxeology is the deductive study of human actions as purposeful behavior. One key difference between Austrian and neoclassical economics is that Austrian economics relies more on deduction than neoclassical economics does. Austrians claim that there are many questions we don't need to test since they follow logically from irrefutable axioms about humans.
Introduction to Praxeology
https://youtu.be/aTXxvWa11Lg Mises U, Hans-Herman Hoppe, 2011
On Man, Nature, Truth, and Justice
https://youtu.be/in3sacFHcck Mises U, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, 2015
Ancap
Anarcho-capitalism is the moral conviction that all state power is illegitimate since it is a violation of the non-agression principle (NAP) which claims that it is immoral to initiate (but not respond to) violence against other people.
The state is too dangerous to tolerate
https://youtu.be/RILDjo4EXV8 Mises U, Robert Higgs, 2013
An emotional appeal against the existence of government.
Hardcore stuff
Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell
Best book on economics I ever read.
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Good book introducing "objectivism" which is a philosophy that combines psychology with economics and is very efficient at identifying certain negative psychological traits that are common in society.
Murray Rothbard's, Economics 101 (whole course)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKjJE86mQRtuTPQ1Fm4isMG1w9fTWBu-X
A collection of eight lectures by Murray N. Rothbard, spanning from the 1970s to the early 1990s. He is speaking in a small classroom setting, explaining economics from the ground up, and systematically in the manner of a classic 101 course on the topic—but with a revolutionary approach.
Murray Rothbard's Introduction to Microeconomics (whole course)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKjJE86mQRtvCN4vEsxYEntK0MFbsAv4t
Presented by Murray N. Rothbard in 1986 at New York Polytechnic University. Recorded by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.