The world is in the middle of an economic crisis.
Usually, the phrase “economic crisis” conjures up images of unemployment lines, shuttered businesses, and financial turmoil. But our current situation is more elusive - and the dangers more hidden.
We’re in the middle of a crisis of radical ignorance.
People are becoming more politically radical - at the same time they find themselves more detached from anything remotely resembling economic literacy.
The majority of Americans support drastic tax hikes, dramatic entitlement spending increases, and are becoming increasingly enamored with politicians who promise them endless “free” services.
The alleged leader of the Democrat party is calling for 70% tax increases - even though she seems to have no idea how economies work, how billionaires are created, or how the American political system even operates.
She’s not alone. In fact, 2/3rds of Americans can’t pass a basic financial literacy test… at the same time, young people support socialism over capitalism.
This isn’t an accident. Economic illiteracy and political radicalism go hand in hand. Economics requires nuance and thoughtful analysis; radicalism requires simplistic, blind conformism.
For an idea to spread, it doesn’t need to appeal to informed citizens. If anything, ignorance tends to help bad ideas breed with shallow appeals to the shallow, destructive incentives.
Almost nobody has any incentive to tell the truth to the people. Instead, nearly everyone simply parrots the talking points that would benefit them in their particular socioeconomic circle. Professional “economists” often turn a blind eye to the most fundamental economic realities to trump Marxist foolishness in order to push their careers forward.
Politicians will directly, comically contradict themselves in order to tickle as many ears as possible.
Business leaders generally seem open only to policies that use the state as a giant machine to hurt their competitors and subsidies their broken business models. The truth is rarely popular. And the truth about money is even less so.
Henry Hazlitt, the influential economist behind the econ classic "Economics in One Lesson" explained the following:
“ECONOMICS IS HAUNTED by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine—the special pleading of selfish interests.”
The above-mentioned crisis is why we launched this website as a free learning platform for people around the world who want to master the basics of economics so they can better understand the world they live in.
The ideas on this website will be fundamental, powerful, useful - and often politically incorrect. And that’s alright.
Ludwig von Mises, one of the greatest economists of the 20th Century, wrote:
"The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it."
