What are the economic effects of market dominance by one firm? To hear the Justice Department tell it, market dominance spells disaster. A market-share monopoly must be supplanted by a competitive environment imposed by the government. This view is shared by the man-on-the-street, who also fears the “market power” of a single provider of a good or
One of the greatest tragedies of intellectual property law is how it generates intellectual confusion among successful businesspeople. Many are under the impression, even when it is not true, that they owe their wealth to copyrights, trademarks, and patents and not necessarily to their business savvy. For this reason, they defend intellectual
At a taped video interview in my office, before the crew would start the camera, a man had to remove my Picasso prints from the wall. The prints are probably under copyright, they said. But the guy who drew them died 30 years ago. Besides, they are mine. Doesn’t matter. They have to go. What about the poor fellow who painted the wall behind the
The Free Market 14, no. 4 (April 1996) There it is, on the cover of Newsweek , in thick, blood-red letters: “Corporate Killers.” What follows is mug-like photo after photo, some of them grainy, of rich white men, all menacing and “greedy.” They are the CEOs of America’s top corporations. The story’s thesis is simple: they are destroying the
Thousands show up for computer sale : People trampled, beaten with a folding chair. A woman urinating on herself. The police called, then themselves calling for backup. All to get a bargain. The stampede erupted Tuesday when a crowd estimated at 5,500 showed up at the Richmond International Raceway to purchase 1,000 used Apple iBook laptop
I suspected as much! What the lady at Home Depot called the “sprinkler repair cult” is an emerging guild seeking privileges and regulations from the government. That means a supply restriction, high prices, or another do-it-yourself project. But there is a way around it. I first began to smell a rat when the automatic irrigation system on my front
There I stood with 8 olive pits in my cheek, talking to the checkout lady at the grocery store as she waved my half-pound container of antipasto over the scanner light. All the while, I hoped she that she wouldn’t notice or ask why I sounded like I had marbles in mouth. Like many shoppers before and after, I had been standing at the olive bar
My friend Carl Horowitz writes a good piece urging Hollywood to join the film pirates rather than fight them. He is surely right about this. Film downloads cannot be stopped, but the premise of his article is that if they could be stopped, they should be stopped. He makes an analogy to baseball. He says that defending piracy as a right is like
I know nothing about the tire market but it seems clear that the u nions have set out to destroy another company . I’m in the market now for tires, and I would like to buy Goodyear if only to support “capital” over “labor” (how absurd to think that their interests are naturally opposed!). But the car parts guy tells me that I can get a better
The Nation has posted an interesting article on how corporate conglomerates are ganging up on on Google to use government to give the innovative company the what for. So I read this because I was curious: what is the leftist answer here? Favor the corporate conglomerate or the corporate conglomerates that are attacking the corporate conglomerate?
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.