The media is trying to frame last week’s indictment of James Comey as a “norm-shattering” use of executive power for personal gain. In truth, it's just the latest chapter in a much older story: the struggle between elected and unelected officials.

The Real Jan. 6th Coup

09/30/2025 Power & Market Ron Paul

In my first column after the events of Jan. 6th, 2021, I criticized those who called the protest a “coup,” pointing out that, “Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous...

Schumpeter Explains the Origins of the Modern Tax State

09/30/2025 Mises Wire Ryan McMaken

In the West, the "tax states" we now live under are relatively modern institutions, and they developed from earlier non-state civil governments that were often not primarily funded by taxes.

The Wheels of Government Cheese

09/30/2025 Mises Wire Ludovico Lumicisi

By trying to protect dairy farmers and raise their incomes, the government created a massive cheese surplus, then gave it away, thus harming the farmers they were trying to support.

How the Fourteenth Amendment Empowers Judicial Activism

09/30/2025 Mises Wire Wanjiru Njoya

Created to assure that newly-freed slaves would receive equal legal protection, the Fourteenth Amendment has come to dominate federal jurisprudence. This is not a good thing.

Meet the Writer

E.C. Pasour Jr.

E.C. Pasour, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University.

Conservation, “X-Inefficiency” and Efficient Use of Natural Resources

07/30/2014 Journal of Libertarian Studies E.C. Pasour Jr.

The early conservation movement in the United States was initiated by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 when he called together a conference of state governors. The premise of the conservation movement...

The Free Rider as a Basis for Government Intervention

07/30/2014 Journal of Libertarian Studies E.C. Pasour Jr.

The “free rider problem,” arising from the fact that an individual may be able to obtain the benefits of a good without contributing to the cost, is discussed in a number of different contexts. In the...

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.

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