Mises Wire

Big business will develop naturally in a truly free marketplace. But government intervention and “too-big-to-fail” are also factors that cannot be ignored.

Before Murray Rothbard, there was Albert Jay Nock laying intellectual broadsides against the tyranny of the state. While Nock (unlike Rothbard) never called for total abolishment of the state, he did want as minimal a state as could be had.

The left has always attacked capitalism as being anti-social, but today much of the criticism of free markets comes from the right. Capitalism, they claim, breaks social bonds that hold societies together and it promotes wokeness. Dr. Wanjiru Njoya takes sharp exception to such claims.

If World War I was allegedly fought “to make the world safe for democracy,” World War II seems to have made the world “safe” for socialism, as socialist regimes took power or expanded their reach. Myanmar was one of those countries, and the political turmoil there continues to the present.

Great Britain’s economy clearly is underperforming from what it could be. Unfortunately, the damage is self-inflicted and change is not likely in the future, especially with a socialist government.

Unfortunately, slavery was not just propped up by policy in the slave states, but federally. It is often overlooked that the federal government—not just slave states—had implemented legal protections of slavery by policy for decades.

Few Americans today realize that until the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913, US senators were appointed by their state legislatures, not by popular vote. This development had an unfortunate effect upon US politics, further damaging the original federalist governing arrangement.

Politicians claim that trade deficits are due to the lack of trade barriers. However, as Ludwig von Mises explained, one cannot separate trade and sound money, especially when the current edition of the US dollar is declining in value relative to what it can buy.

Even though Cuba poses no threat to the US, the Trump administration continues its criminal policies of sanctions and other restrictions in an attempt to foist “regime change” on the country.

The story of Anil Ambani destroys the belief that capitalism automatically favors the rich and excludes the poor. Once a billionaire, he made a series of bad business choices and the market punished those choices. Capitalism favors good choices.