Page 3 - 2025 Annual Report

MESSAGE FROM
LEW ROCKWELL

When I started the Mises Institute more than 40 inflation and that
years ago, I knew that I wasn’t going to create yet “capitalism” causes
another “think tank” that would serve largely as unaffordable housing.
a home for de facto lobbyists who strive to flatter This will become all
politicians at cocktail parties. Rather, I wanted to the more important as
create a true research center that would advance the the next recession hits
legacy of Ludwig von Mises and his uncompromising in the coming years
scholarship of freedom and economic science. and the regime tells
us the answer is more
For decades now, that is what we have been doing. inflation and more
In the years since Margit von Mises helped me create government spending.
the Institute, we have reclaimed Mises’s work from
the obscurity imposed on it by the regime’s court Here at the Mises Institute, we work every day to
economists, who had seized control of academia bring truths about freedom and free markets into
and mainstream economics. Since then, Mises’s this muddled marketplace of ideas. One of the
students—including the great Murray Rothbard— most important sources of bad economic ideas is
and followers have spurred a renaissance in Austrian academia. That is why we work so hard to counter the
School research and have produced countless articles errors of academia with new books and new research.
and books.
But we don’t stop at new scholarship. We strive
One of the most apparent by-products of the to create new scholars as well. This is at the very
Austrian School’s revival has been the decline of center of what we do. Through Mises University,
public deference toward central bankers. Until about the Rothbard Graduate Seminar, our academic
20 years ago, the Federal Reserve was treated as conferences, and our Fellows in Residence program,
essentially untouchable and as a repository for special we are creating a new generation of faculty
knowledge on how to centrally plan the financial members, secondary school teachers, journalists,
system and the economy.
financial analysts, and others to carry on the work of
But thanks in part to the principled work of our Mises and Rothbard.
monetary economists—popularized by Ron Paul,
one of our earliest supporters—the Fed is no longer Mises died more than 50 years ago, but now, more
a sacred cow. In fact, during the Ron Paul Revolution, than ever before, his work is being taught in high
the Fed started putting on press conferences in schools and colleges across the nation to a degree
an effort to burnish its public image. But it hasn’t Mises himself probably could not have imagined.
worked, and the central bank is now a target of We don’t stop at academia, either. We work to bring
relentless criticism.
the ideas of freedom and free markets to the general
Yet it’s not enough to simply criticize the central bank public with our podcasts, videos, and short web
or the regime that backs it. We must also understand articles, which engage tens of thousands of readers
why the Fed is wrong, why inflation causes business and listeners every day. And it’s working: We have
cycles, and why the destruction of our monetary hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
system impoverishes ordinary people. Our documentary on the Federal Reserve, released
just over a year ago, has more than a million views.
Without the knowledge of how money and markets
work, there is little hope for outcomes that change Here in our 2025 annual report, you’ll find details
anything for the better. about all the work we did this past year. With millions
of visitors to our website each year, with hundreds
After all, even if people already know they are being of new students at our academic events, and with a
ripped off—and many do—they still need to know near-constant stream of new content, we continue to
why and how they are being ripped off. Otherwise, spread the message of Austrian economics, freedom,
the regime gets to define the problem, which means and peace.
that they also control the solution.
We are enormously grateful for your continued
So long as there is confusion as to the truth about support of our mission.
private property and free markets, we will continue
to hear—as we have for years—that “greed” causes —Lew Rockwell

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