A recent trip to Santa Monica, California, provided me with a clear explanation of why Californians, despite all their wealth, talent, and resourcefulness, have the energy supply system of a Third World country. Like so many tiny Latin American dictatorships, or the outer provinces of India, Californians can no longer rely on a steady supply of
Suppose someone defined the game of golf in terms of riding in carts, wearing funny pants and large shirts, and occasionally using the various clubs to beat one’s dog. Would this be fair? Chances are, someone who gave such a definition of the game would probably be on a warpath to disparage it, encourage attacks on it, not to explain its true
As layoffs continue to mount during this economic downturn, let us reflect on the purpose of the labor market, with a special focus on the market I know best: academic music. A classmate once told me he would become a university faculty member or an overeducated, “bitter, underemployed vagabond.” He got his PhD in social psychology; I got my MS in
NOTE: The Mises Institute neither buys nor sells kidney, nor any other bodily organ, nor are we prepared to receive bodily organs as in-kind gifts. On April 18, the Fox News Channel reported that the federal government, led by HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, is trying to rally support for organ donations. Even celebrities are supportive of this
To gain insight into the state of an economy, most people rely on a statistic called Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP framework looks at the value of final goods and services produced during a particular time interval, usually a quarter or a year. This statistic is constructed in accordance with the view that what drives an economy is not the
The tech-stock sector is a wasteland today, only a year after appearing invulnerable. There are economic lessons here that point to the folly of unsustainable, credit-fueled booms. But others want to draw moral lessons as well, as if the hand of justice is smiting all those cocky dot-com millionaires to show them that their good fortune was at
The Free Market 19, no. 8 (August 2001) British economist A.C. Pigou was instrumental in developing the theory of externalities. The theory examines cases where some of the costs or benefits of activities “spill over” onto third parties. When it is a cost that is imposed on third parties, it is called a negative externality. When third parties
Much effort is put into making economics “tractable,” as the mathematical economists like to put it. In 1977, two neoclassical economists, Gary Becker and George Stigler, wrote a famous paper entitled “De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum.” In this paper, the authors contend: “Tastes neither change capriciously nor differ importantly between people.
At the doctor’s office, we are faced with long waiting periods in crowded waiting rooms, and when the doctor finally sees us, he is rushed for time. The quality of service and the attention to detail suffer in such a situation, increasing the level of frustration for both doctor and patient. The doctor’s every action is monitored-either directly,
Review of The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else , by Hernando De Soto. New York: Basic Books, 2000. ISBN 0-465-01614-6, $27.50 (hardback). Last year, my wife and I traveled to Guatemala City in Central America to adopt a baby girl. While Guatemala City is a bustling, well-planned metropolis with
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.