A year ago July, I sent my girlfriend some flowers. I picked up the phone, called a florist, and, for about thirty dollars, she received one dozen roses. Seven months later, for Valentine’s Day, I called the same florist and again ordered one dozen roses for my girlfriend. This time, however, they would cost one hundred twenty dollars. I was
[From Money Magazine , August 1999] In her superb new biography of J.P. Morgan , Jean Strouse quotes a few lines written by the historian Henry Adams in 1902: “Pierpont Morgan...is carrying loads that stagger the strongest nerves. Everyone asks what would happen if some morning he woke up dead.” Almost a century later, the men and women at the top
A Seminar with J. Guido Hülsmann Held at the Ludwig von Mises Institute June 1999 In the desert of academic economics, those looking for a drink of clarity got even more than they might have hoped for in “Austrian Economics vs. The Mainstream,” an eight-part seminar directed by J. Guido Hülsmann. Professor Hülsmann began with a solidly Misesian
Al Gore may be dull-witted, and his speech slow and stiff. But despite this pathetic demeanor, Gore is a formidable defender of government. His program to “reinvent” government was a brilliant maneuver to hide a massive increase in government size and power in a guise of phony cuts in government employees and improved government efficiency. Gore
The Free Market 17, no. 3 (March 1999) The Equal Pay Act of 1963 trampled on the rights of states to regulate their own labor markets, by overturning local laws enacted to protect women from working long hours, working at night, lifting heavy objects, and working during pregnancy. In addition, the 1963 law prohibited employers and employees from
The Free Market 17, no. 4 (April 1999) Taxes distort the price system and always alter behavior away from the free-market ideal. That is why, as J.B. Say said, the best tax is always the lowest tax. But in recent years, state and local governments have been using the tax system, along with direct subsidies of all sorts, to influence where
The Free Market 17, no. 5 (May 1999) Murray Rothbard once asked Ludwig von Mises at what point on the spectrum of statism can a country be designated as “socialist.” To his surprise, Mises said that there was, indeed, a clear-cut delineation: the stock market. Mises said, “A stock market is crucial to the existence of capitalism and private
The Free Market 17, no. 7 (July 1999) The internet provides a remarkable test case of the free market. What have we learned? Business doesn’t need government to succeed. Independence is the trait that sums up the attitude of all successful web entrepreneurs. But this model of market success is not to be found in most textbooks of American
The Free Market 17, no. 9 (September 1999) As the bureaucrats pursue their Draconian war on drugs, the Clinton administration is conspiring with the pharmaceutical industry to provide drugs at taxpayer expense. Under the guise of expanding Medicare—already a massive wealth transfer from young to old—prescription drugs will be included among the
The Free Market 17, no. 12 (December 1999) The workaholic, or more precisely worry about him, is back. During the 1980s, just as the free market’s reputation was beginning to rebound, the guardians of the national psyche discovered “workaholism.” The victim of this disorder was defined as working compulsively, spending far too much time at his
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.