Socialists believed they could centrally plan an economy.

Then Ludwig von Mises walked in and told them: “You won’t even know how much steel to use.”

What followed was one of the most devastating intellectual takedowns in history 🧵 After the Bolshevik Revolution, socialist thinkers claimed that central planning was more “rational” than messy market competition.

They believed you could build a better economy with blueprints and bureaucrats.

In 1920, Ludwig von Mises entered the room.

Campus feels like enemy territory?

You’re not crazy. And you’re not alone.

Here’s how to survive—and thrive—as a liberty-minded student in a culture that often treats your ideas like they don’t belong 🧵 If you believe in liberty, college can feel like a rigged game.

Classes push ideology as truth.

Debate feels dangerous. Dissent gets awkward.

It’s easy to think you’re the only one asking serious questions.

But you’re not. And you don’t need to water yourself down.

Karl Marx said he had discovered the scientific laws of economics.

Value came from labor.

Profit was theft.

Only central planning could build a just society.

But four Austrian economists—Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, Mises, and Hayek—tore his theory apart. 🧵 Marx said value comes from labor.

Carl Menger said: value comes from us.

In Principles of Economics (1871), he showed that value is subjective. It depends on the preferences of individuals—changing across people, places, and time.

A violin is priceless to a musician, worthless to someone else. Food is worth more to the starving than to the full.

Labor doesn’t determine value.

Human needs do.

Thomas Sowell has more insight than most tenured professors.

That’s not hyperbole—it’s the real reason the academic establishment pretends he doesn’t exist.

They don’t refute him.

They exclude him.

Here are 5 Sowell ideas they hope you never read 🧵 Sowell isn’t interested in political theater.

He doesn’t appeal to emotion, identity, or tribe.

He asks a simple but dangerous question:

What happens when we try this in the real world?

That’s why his work remains threatening—because it still holds up.

The Soviets didn’t just conquer Poland with tanks.

They conquered it with envy.

Here’s how socialism uses resentment—not just repression—to dominate entire societies 🧵 After WWII, the USSR took control of Poland.

Everyone knows they used force.

Fewer know what came next.

The Soviets needed more than violence to control a proud, educated people.

So they weaponized something older than ideology:

Envy.

In the name of “the people,” socialist regimes have spent decades silencing anyone who didn’t fit their mold.

And few groups have suffered more under their rule than LGBT individuals.

Here’s why communism fears them—and why liberty protects them 🧵 In 2023, China cracked down on LGBT groups.

Dozens of WeChat accounts—used to organize, educate, and advocate—were deleted overnight. No notice. No process.

Just silence.

Because under communism, you don’t get to define yourself.

The Party defines everything.

You’ve been taught to hate profit.

But profit isn’t greed.

It’s the most honest feedback system ever created.

Here’s why markets can’t work without it 🧵 Even defenders of capitalism often treat profit as a perk—

A bonus for entrepreneurs who took risks.

But that’s not it.

Profit is a signal.

A powerful form of communication.

Without it, no one knows what to do.

The Pope who lit the fire that helped burn down the Soviet empire.

A story about courage under totalitarianism—and how one man’s refusal to kneel changed history. 🧵 Karol Wojtyla, later known as John Paul II, grew up under two tyrannies:

First the Nazis. Then the communists.

He wasn’t a politician.

He wasn’t a soldier.

He fought with culture. With ideas. With faith that wouldn’t break.

Most people think liberty needs to be justified.

Robert Nozick flipped the script: Power does.

Here’s how a Harvard-trained socialist tried to debunk libertarianism—and became one of its strongest defenders 🧵
In the 1960s, Nozick was everything the academic world admired:

— Columbia-educated
— Harvard professor
— Proud socialist

He believed in redistribution, social justice, and the state.

Until one question got stuck in his mind:

What if libertarians weren’t just selfish—but right?

You’ve been taught fascism and socialism are opposites.

One far-right. One far-left.

One about “order,” the other about “equality.”

But look closer—especially at their economics—and that myth falls apart. 🧵
In school, fascism was framed as capitalism with jackboots. The opposite of communism. A right-wing monster created to crush socialism.

But in reality, fascism didn’t oppose socialism’s controls. It shared them. It just rebranded.

Before it was a meme, it was a revolution.

This is the real story of the Gadsden Flag—

A symbol of decentralized resistance, moral defiance, and the right to be left alone.🧵 You can’t understand the Gadsden Flag without the Sons of Liberty—

A grassroots rebellion against British tyranny.

No king. No central command.

Just printers, merchants, and militias who knew where to draw the line.

One of them? Christopher Gadsden.

Everyone talks about 1984 because of Orwell.

But what happened in 1984 at the Olympics?

No debt. No taxpayer money. No state-run chaos.

Just the most efficient Games in modern history—run like a startup. 🧵
By the early ’80s, the Olympics were a financial disaster.

Montreal lost $1.5B in 1976. It took 30 years to pay off the debt.

When the IOC asked cities to bid for 1984, almost no one wanted it.

Los Angeles “won” by default—but with one condition:

No public money.

Thomas Sowell was once a committed Marxist.

Even after Harvard. Even after Milton Friedman.

So what changed his mind?

It wasn’t a book. It was working in government.

Here’s the story 🧵
In his twenties, Sowell was all in on Marxism.

He read deeply. Argued fiercely.

Bought encyclopedias to understand class theory.

By the time he got to Harvard, classmates called him “the Marxist guy.”

He believed it—not casually, but seriously.

Everyone teaches Frederick Douglass.

Almost no one teaches what he believed.

He didn’t want redistribution. He didn’t demand special treatment.

He wanted liberty, dignity, and the right to own his life.

Let’s talk about the real Frederick Douglass 🧵 Everyone agrees he was a hero.

• Escaped slavery
• Electrified audiences
• Fought for abolition and equality

But Douglass wasn’t a socialist. He wasn’t a collectivist.

He was a thinker of liberty—and a defender of self-ownership.

If you care about minorities, civil rights, or human dignity—You can’t defend socialism.

It promised justice, equality, and freedom.

It delivered mass persecution, censorship, privilege for elites, and unimaginable death.

Let’s look at the record 🧵 Every socialist regime said it stood for equality. But they all built brutal hierarchies.

In Mao’s China, the elite feasted while millions starved.

In Venezuela, the poor eat from trash cans—while officials throw champagne parties.

In North Korea, the Kims live like royalty.

What’s new in Austrian Economics?

It’s not just Mises and Hayek anymore.

Over the last 40 years, Austrian economics has evolved into a vibrant research tradition—applying timeless principles to fields mainstream econ often ignores.

Let’s dive in 🧵
Austrian econ is still grounded in its classic pillars:

• Subjectivism (value is in the eye of the chooser)
• Methodological individualism
• Entrepreneurial discovery
• Time, uncertainty, and institutions

But today’s Austrians are building outward—from money to war zones.

He wrote that all men are created equal—but he also enslaved hundreds.

Today is Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Celebrated by some liberty lovers and degraded by others.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly 🧵 The Good

Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, inserting the idea that all individuals are created equal—a radical idea in 1776 that abolitionists like Frederick Douglass later used to expose America’s contradictions.

Hollywood vs. freedom? Not always.

Here are 10 movies that (intentionally or not) deliver strong libertarian messages—about state overreach, personal freedom, and bottom-up resilience.

Save this thread for your next movie night 🧵
The LEGO Movie (2014)

A society ruled by “President Business” forces everyone to follow the instructions.

Until Emmet breaks free.

A surprisingly powerful defense of:

• Spontaneous order
• Creativity without permission
• Decentralized problem-solving

Seattle tried to “help” gig workers by forcing delivery apps to pay them a minimum wage.

The result?

• Higher prices.
• Fewer orders.
• Less work.
• More restaurants shutting down.

A thread on how good intentions backfired—hard. 🧵👇
In 2022, Seattle passed a law forcing Uber Eats, DoorDash, and other gig platforms to pay drivers the city’s minimum wage per hour worked.

Supporters said it was about “worker justice.”

Critics warned it would destroy the very jobs it aimed to protect.

Trump’s tariffs aren’t just about trade.

They’re the start of a radical plan to rewrite the global economy.

It’s called the “Mar-a-Lago Agreement”—and it could shake the foundations of the dollar system.

Here’s what no one’s explaining 🧵 Let’s start with the current system:

The U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency.

That means foreign countries want to hold dollars—not to buy U.S. goods, but to settle debts, buy oil, and build financial reserves.

Result? Massive demand for dollars.

Milton Friedman at Playboy

In 1973, Milton Friedman was invited to be interviewed by Playboy.

We select a few of his best answers 🧵.
PLAYBOY: In every public debate on an issue involving economics, there seem to be nearly as many conflicting opinions as there are economists. Why can’t you people get together?

FRIEDMAN: We do. But that seldom makes news. It’s our disagreements that receive attention. For example, how much attention is paid to agreement between Galbraith and myself in opposing a draft and favoring an all-volunteer armed force, or in opposing tariffs and favoring free trade, or on a host of other issues? (…)