Who was Ludwig von Mises?  Seeing his name appears around here regularly, a few of you have written me asking.

Since I always like to answer intelligent questions if I can and this is certainly a question worth answering, here's a 30-minute video introducing the man, his career and his thinking to a 197os audience.  (You might note that not all of the Misesians interviewed are always as rational as the man they describe.)

Hear about his many battles with Communists and Nazis and other socialists, and all his numerous victories -- how he saved Austria from a Bolshevik revolution and from the ruinous inflation that decimated Weimar Gemany; how he showed in 1920 that socialism had to fail, in 1912 that central banking causes recessions and depressions; and across the course of his whole life that only laissez-faire capitalism is fully compatible with Western civilization.  Video is by MisesMedia.

For those who want more, there's always Mises' own 1969 essay on ''The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics',' which is as it happens my homework for this week for George Reisman's economics course.

'Oh, and since it's topical, here's a link to the free download of Ludwig von Mises' monograph on 'Bureaucracy,' published the day after FA Hayek's 'Road to Serfdom.'  Send a copy of both to John Key.  And maybe another to Russell Brown.