Mises Daily

Laurence Vance offers a critique of John Merrifield's school voucher proposal. If the public school system were abolished, or even rendered irrelevant, what would be the point in collecting tax money from all citizens and redistributing it to those who have school-age children? How is this any different from a Great Society redistribution scheme? In short, Merrifield's "competition" and "choice" could, in practice, amount to vast wealth redistribution and another layer of educational central planning: not choice but market-based socialism.

Network science matters because even something seemingly as simple as a price for a good emerges from the plans and actions of a multitude of individuals, writes Gene Callahan.

Paul Cantor tours the Black Sea region and observes how the juxtaposition of Lenin and McDonald's is curiously symbolic of the whole history of the region. For over two thousand years, two forces have contended with each other in this strategically located area: the state as conqueror and merchants who come in peace.

The capture of Saddam unleashed so much euphoria that many people have forgotten that the original justification for the war was not merely

It is a common error: the tendency to inflate the ability of government to shape the world according to its liking. Politicians and their critics both are guilty of this. In truth, government cannot outsmart the market, and it is far less powerful than the laws of economics and the buying and selling decisions of consumers and entrepreneurs. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., explains how and why this is so, and what it means for our future.

There are many available definitions of the money stock: M1, M2, M3, MZM, and a host of others. Frank Shostak says that it actually does matter which one we use.

Before the Fed blessed this country with unlimited liquidity, American history saw two previous attempts at creating a centralized institution of money and credit: the First and Second Banks of the United States. Both generated financial havoc, and were rightly opposed by the champions of freedom and sound money. Historian Scott Trask explains.

No, there are no economic agencies in this country like Gosplan, but the U.S. Government, as well as many state and local governments, engage in central economic planning all the same. As Bill Anderson tells us, in the end, it is still central economic planning and, not surprisingly, it does not work any better here than it did in the U.S.S.R.

The exchange rate is a measure of the relative value of these two currencies, not the value of the dollar or the euro per se. Perhaps the value of dollar and the euro have risen lately but the euro a bit more. Richard Johnsson believes that both have lost in value since mid-2001, only the euro has lost less than the dollar.

The Republicans have done it again. With their new Medicare bill, they've made goverment even bigger. James Ostrowski writes that the Republicans have been expanding the size, scope and power of government ever since they first got their mitts on power in 1861.