American Experience, The Great Famine (PBS, 2011) a one-hour show on the Russian famine and U.S. relief efforts in 1921-22. PBS AE has a webpage, but I don’t believe you can view it there (even with Passport, if you are a member). I just watched a free version here:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7w7dzr

From trying it here, I doubt that this link will take you directly to this particular video there. I found it again by searching “the great famine pbs” in DuckDuckGo, which worked.

A nice collection of Hayek essays from a 1947 book, Individualism and Economic Order (free):

https://mises.org/library/individualism-and-economic-order

The book includes The Use of Knowledge in Society, 1945 (linked above), and Economics and Knowledge, 1937. The 1937 essay was clearly influenced by Frank Knight’s PhD dissertation at Cornell (first published in book form in 1920 — Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit — which Hayek taught from as a textbook at the London School of Economics, I believe. A good PDF version is available at the Mises Institute, for free).

Hayek’s The Counter-Revolution of Science, his great book on methodology, I don’t believe is available in electronic format (though parts were journal articles). It is in book format (but not free). When Mises talks about Utopian socialists (predecessors to Marx), I’m pretty sure he is talking about Proudhon (as mentioned specifically in his 1920 essay). But I believe he is likely also talking about French intellectuals such as Comte and St. Simon, who Hayek I know covers in this book. Mises’ methodological works are more spread out and probably harder to understand. The French intellectuals part (maybe half) of Counter Revolution of Science, I also recall as somewhat humorous.

Linked below is (1) the Mises Institute’s description of the CRS, and (2) Hayek’s Nobel address, touching on similar methodological themes:

https://mises.org/library/counter-revolution-science-0

The Pretense of Knowledge
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hayek/lecture/

Mises’ 1958 address to the Mont Pelerin Society is a historical tour de force. The meeting that year was at Princeton, where American “Austrian School” economist, Frank Fetter, originally from Indiana, but who received his PhD in Germany, previously taught and was head of the department. Linked is the Best of Online Library of Liberty version, and versions from the Mises Institute (including the original audio):

BOLL #4, click EBOOK PDF (or other option)
Liberty and Property

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/mises-boll-4-ludwig-von-mises-liberty-and-property-1958

Mises Institute versions (includes original audio)

https://mises.org/library/liberty-and-property

Among other things, such as the historical development of capitalism, Mises mentions how Professor Fetter underestimated the power of the market versus democracy in Fetter’s economic principles book (1904, I think, maybe the 1915 edition too). Fetter compared voting with your pocketbook to votes in a political election. Mises’ further distinction was that minority interests are also served by the market (e.g., big and tall, not winner take all).

Here is that point from Mises’ Preface to the Second German Edition of Socialism, 1932 (the book originally published in 1922, and linked in my first comment up above):

Capitalist society is the realization of what we should call economic democracy, had not the term—according I believe, to the terminology of Lord Passfield and Mrs. Webb—come into use and been applied exclusively to a system in which the workers, as producers, and not the consumers themselves, would decide what was to be produced and how. This state of affairs would be as little democratic as, say, a political constitution under which the government officials and not the whole people decided how the state was to be governed—surely the opposite of what we are accustomed to call democracy. When we call a capitalist society a consumers’ democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers’ ballot, held daily in the market-place. Every child who prefers one toy to another puts its voting paper in the ballot-box, which eventually decides who shall be elected captain of industry. True, there is no equality of vote in this democracy; some have plural votes. But the greater voting power which the disposal of a greater income implies can only be acquired and maintained by the test of election. That the consumption of the rich weighs more heavily in the balance than the consumption of the poor—though there is a strong tendency to overestimate considerably the amount consumed by the well-to-do classes in proportion to the consumption of the masses—is in itself an ’election result’, since in a capitalist society wealth can be acquired and maintained only by a response corresponding to the consumers’ requirements. Thus the wealth of successful business men is always the result of a consumers’ plebiscite, and, once acquired, this wealth can be retained only if it is employed in the way regarded by consumers as most beneficial to them. The average man is both better informed and less corruptible in the decisions he makes as a consumer than as a voter at political elections. There are said to be voters who, faced with a decision between Free Trade and Protection, the Gold Standard and Inflation, are unable to keep in view all that their decision implies. The buyer who has to choose between different sorts of beer or makes of chocolate has certainly an easier job of it.

Same or similar themes as the full Liberty and Property audio from 1958: Mises 5 minute audio, 1962, intermission of US Steel Concert Hour

https://mises.org/library/wage-earners-and-employers-0

American Experience, The Great Famine (PBS, 2011) a one-hour show on the Russian famine and U.S. relief efforts in 1921-22. PBS AE has a webpage, but I don’t believe you can view it there (even with Passport, if you are a member). I just watched a free version here:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7w7dzr

From trying it here, I’m not sure this link will take you directly to this video there. I found it again by searching “the great famine pbs” in DuckDuckGo.

A nice collection of Hayek essays from a 1947 book, Individualism and Economic Order (free PDF):

https://mises.org/library/individualism-and-economic-order

The book includes The Use of Knowledge in Society, 1945 (linked above), and Economics and Knowledge, 1937. The 1937 essay was clearly influenced by Frank Knight’s PhD dissertation at Cornell (first published in book form in 1920 — Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit — which Hayek taught from as a textbook at the London School of Economics, I believe. A good PDF version is available at the Mises Institute, for free).

Hayek’s The Counter-Revolution of Science, his great book on methodology, I don’t believe is available in electronic format (though parts were journal articles). It is in book format (but not free). When Mises talks about Utopian socialists (predecessors to Marx), I’m pretty sure he is talking about Proudhon (as mentioned specifically in his 1920 essay). But I believe he is likely also talking about French intellectuals such as Comte and St. Simon, who Hayek I know covers in this book. Mises’ methodological works are more spread out and probably harder to understand. The French intellectuals’ part (maybe half) of Counter Revolution of Science, I also recall as somewhat humorous.

Linked below is (1) the Mises Institute’s description of the CRS, and (2) Hayek’s Nobel address, touching on similar methodological themes:

https://mises.org/library/counter-revolution-science-0

The Pretense of Knowledge
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hayek/lecture/

Mises’ 1958 address to the Mont Pelerin Society is an historical tour de force. The meeting that year was at Princeton, where American “Austrian School” economist, Frank Fetter, originally from Indiana, but who received his PhD in Germany, previously taught and was head of the department. Linked is the Best of Online Library of Liberty version, and versions from the Mises Institute (including the original audio):

BOLL #4, click EBOOK PDF (or other option)
Liberty and Property

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/mises-boll-4-ludwig-von-mises-liberty-and-property-1958

Mises Institute versions (includes original audio)

https://mises.org/library/liberty-and-property

Among other things, such as the historical development of capitalism, Mises mentions how Professor Fetter underestimated the power of the market versus democracy in Fetter’s economic principles book (1904, I think, maybe the 1915 edition too). Fetter compared voting with your pocketbook to votes in a political election. Mises’ further distinction was that minority interests are also served by the market (e.g., big and tall, not winner take all).

Here is that point from Mises’ Preface to the Second German Edition of Socialism, 1932 (the book originally published in 1922, linked in my first comment up above):

Capitalist society is the realization of what we should call economic democracy, had not the term—according I believe, to the terminology of Lord Passfield and Mrs. Webb—come into use and been applied exclusively to a system in which the workers, as producers, and not the consumers themselves, would decide what was to be produced and how. This state of affairs would be as little democratic as, say, a political constitution under which the government officials and not the whole people decided how the state was to be governed—surely the opposite of what we are accustomed to call democracy. When we call a capitalist society a consumers’ democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers’ ballot, held daily in the market-place. Every child who prefers one toy to another puts its voting paper in the ballot-box, which eventually decides who shall be elected captain of industry. True, there is no equality of vote in this democracy; some have plural votes. But the greater voting power which the disposal of a greater income implies can only be acquired and maintained by the test of election. That the consumption of the rich weighs more heavily in the balance than the consumption of the poor—though there is a strong tendency to overestimate considerably the amount consumed by the well-to-do classes in proportion to the consumption of the masses—is in itself an ’election result’, since in a capitalist society wealth can be acquired and maintained only by a response corresponding to the consumers’ requirements. Thus the wealth of successful business men is always the result of a consumers’ plebiscite, and, once acquired, this wealth can be retained only if it is employed in the way regarded by consumers as most beneficial to them. The average man is both better informed and less corruptible in the decisions he makes as a consumer than as a voter at political elections. There are said to be voters who, faced with a decision between Free Trade and Protection, the Gold Standard and Inflation, are unable to keep in view all that their decision implies. The buyer who has to choose between different sorts of beer or makes of chocolate has certainly an easier job of it.

Same or similar themes as the full Liberty and Property audio from 1958: Mises 5 minute audio, 1962, intermission of US Steel Concert Hour

https://mises.org/library/wage-earners-and-employers-0

It took me a long time to understand how banks can create money out of thin air without any commodity or “hard money” to back it. I am still not entirely sure if they can do this without limit on their own initiative, or if the reserve account requirements with the Fed, or whatever, provide some limitations. Presumably they self-limit to the extent they believe the borrower is sufficiently credit worthy to pay them back eventually. Unless they can pawn a weak portfolio unto some other sucker instead.

Not that I’m pleased with the current agenda to intentionally gut the military by requiring jingoistic alignment to socialist or other fads in social engineering that are going through the courses these days. Nor do I condone with the ‘March through the Institution’ change in directives and personnel that has been ongoing since Obama years.

The only problem with capitalism is government fiddling. It fiddles with the quantity of money in circulation and its velocity of movement and the cost of the temporary use of money (borrowing) and the taking by taxation of money for government purposes and of use of money for bribery of voters and welfare. All this causes prices to often be “made”. Made prices are not so valid as taken prices, because they don’t have as much information packed into them.

The Enlightenment has one last remaining job: remove government from its role with money. There are ways where the people can manage all the government’s present involvement with money. We can certainly create it with cryptocurrencies. And we can establish interest rates controlling its borrowing and we can generate prices all by ourselves.

Of course, the government would go delirious if the people excluded it from anything to do with money and we would have to fight a terrific political conflict to get this done; this battle might take hundreds of years. But there really is no natural right or intuitive sense that government should be directing the monetary life of its people.

After all, the banks are doing some of this now by their lending via the fractional reserve system. When they lend they add an imaginary sum to the borrowers account, hoping that this will be repaid. In the meantime they have created money and the government has not been involved. And we, ourselves, create money whenever we create a good or service which someone buys. The Fed senses this increment of new economic activity and tries to add to the money supply to match this by buying Treasury bonds (or printing money if these bonds are not available.)

So, if we start a new business and the public likes its offerings and purchases its product, we are creating money. There is no reason given by God that says the government has to be involved.

The key job is to try to match the total goods and services transacted by the amount of money needed to do this. We can do this ourselves without the government.

Another seminar participant mentioned there is Joseph Schumpeter, Mises’ friend and contemporary in Vienna, who would later supervise Paul Samuelson’s PhD at Harvard. (Samuelson was still predicting in his 1985 edition of his introductory economics textbook, the best-selling of all time, what year the Soviet economy would be larger in size than the U.S.; a date he kept moving back; the Berlin Wall fell not long after that edition.)

Conditions in Vienna in 1919 were outlined in the third segment from this list of YouTube videos, including Mises’ part, as part of a 2002 PBS documentary, Commanding Heights:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLROP0T_I8IA-gvxyaI6wMS6EPAK9n0WxJ

The segment preceding that, the second, is on Keynes and Hayek. The full episodes from that documentary are available elsewhere on YouTube (not segment by segment).

This documentary was in a way to show how Mises’ and Hayek’s side in the end prevailed in the “socialist calculation debate” to give credit where credit was due, that Mises’ 1920 prediction proved true. Another example was a long article in The New Yorker on Hayek, who unlike Mises, was still alive to see this.

Hugo Chavez and his successor Maduro made sure that Chavista officers got promoted, and those opposed to him got an early retirement.

Giving all those goodies to the upper ranks- though enlisted men may be short on rations- insures that those in command stay with the Chavista program.

As my professor for graduate microeconomic theory put it, who got his PhD under Paul Samuelson at MIT, so highly mathematical and a little off-point though it implicates all his equations I suppose, worldwide communism would never work. You would would have to have at least one free market economy, say New Zealand for example, so you would have some idea what prices to charge.

https://lawliberty.org/purging-whiteness-to-purge-capitalism/

As is Ludwig von Mises’ point from the Preface to the 2nd English edition of his 1922 book Socialism:

The great ideological conflict of our age must not be confused with the mutual rivalries among the various totalitarian movements. The real issue is not who should run the totalitarian apparatus. The real problem is whether or not socialism should supplant the market economy.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/kahane-socialism-an-economic-and-sociological-analysis

Hayek has a nice Forward to that Socialism book from 1978, if you press the Facsimile PDF button there (not in the HTML version).

In Mises’ Preface to the 2nd German edition, he talks about Utopians of the early 19th century versus the Marxists (pages 5 and 6 of the PDF). Communism was supposed to be inevitable, but it turns out the “working class” did not expropriate the expropriators.

Mises first made his economic point in his 1920 essay, Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth:

https://mises.org/library/economic-calculation-socialist-commonwealth

Hayek makes his argument against central planning in this 1945 article in American Economic Review, The Use of Knowledge in Society, and refers to Mises’ 1920 essay near the end (click EBook PDF):

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/hayek-boll-12-f-a-hayek-the-use-of-knowledge-in-society-1945

This stuff isn’t easy, IMO, and there is more elsewhere. It takes time and effort to understand. Just one example, though, someone like Barack Obama I would have to think is virtually clueless about such matters.