This year marks the bicentennial of the birth of one of history’s most ardent defenders of liberty: Frederic Bastiat. Writing just before and immediately after the French Revolution of February 1848, as France was rapidly moving toward socialism, he used logic and satire to expose the fallacies of socialist arguments in several works, including
September 11 has triggered overwhelming generosity by Americans. The American Red Cross was even able to suspend donation requests for its Liberty Fund, because more than half a billion dollars of pledges will cover its expenses in aiding the WTC victims. But that tidal wave of response also triggered controversy, when the Red Cross announced that
League owners decided to eliminate two baseball franchises. What was the response? Of course, politicians from the areas most likely to lose franchises immediately proposed legislation to extort the league to back down. This Fairness in Antitrust in National Sports Act would have overridden part of a 1922 Supreme Court ruling exempting baseball
Before the Christmas break, Washington labored mightily and gave birth to the 2001-2002 federal budget. Therefore, it was pork barrel time, with taxpayers made unwilling Santas for politicians’ favored constituents. But the billions of dollars devoted to the several thousand earmarked projects that could not survive the regular budget process also
Edmund Burke was borne in Dublin on this day--January 12--some 273 years ago. He is often called the father of conservatism, reflecting the central passion throughout his writings and speeches--opposition to arbitrary power, especially in the hands of the government, with its “officious, universal interference” in people’s lives. He was also an
Politicians and bureaucrats seem to get their hands into everything, including a vast array of things they have no logical or constitutional reason to be involved in. If that wasn’t bad enough, despite their constantly proclaimed commitment to stretching taxpayer dollars as far as possible, they often do such things very inefficiently, giving
“This is like déjà vu all over again.” Yogi Berra’s famous words describe the latest incarnation of proposals to increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, a simple-minded political “solution”--mandating that vehicles get better mileage--to a nonexistent gasoline crisis. Thankfully, this absurd idea has been rejected by the Senate,
The heat under the “living wage” debate has been turned up a notch. The Public Policy Institute of California has just published an extensive study by Michigan State economist David Neumark, the main conclusion of which is that, despite causing increased unemployment among the lowest-wage workers, “living wage laws raise the wages of low-wage
We are approaching April 15, when people’s checkbooks remind them that even if “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society,” it doesn’t follow that the civilization we get is worth the taxes we are forced to pay. But this issue is hardly new. In fact, more than two centuries before our federal budget sped past the $2 trillion mark, those
Why is politics so negative compared to marketing — its analog in the private sector — even though virtually every candidate echoes the desire to “just get along”? The explanation revolves around two important ways political competition differs from market competition: higher payoffs to negative attacks, and rationally ignorant “customers.”
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.