The local paper offered up this vague headline last week, “Car Part Thefts Up in Henderson in 2021, Police Say.” Most readers likely passed over the article. But, in the time it takes to read the piece, a half dozen catalytic converters can be stolen. “It actually takes an individual who’s committing these offenses about three seconds really to
In order to gain insight into the current and future state of an economy, many economists hold that it is helpful to get the view on this from consumers and businesspersons. Randomly selected consumers and businesspersons are asked to provide their views about the current and the future state of the economy. Thus if the majority of those surveyed
This week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave two days worth of testimony before Congress. As part of his testimony, he presented the Monetary Policy Report July 2021 . With this week’s major economic news flow undoubtedly being that (price) inflation, as measured by the Labor Department, is on the dramatic rise, it’s easy to lose sight of
Hans Hoppe’s famous “argumentation ethics” has generated a great deal of attention among libertarians, and deservedly so. Has Hoppe produced an ironclad demonstration that people have libertarian rights? I don’t propose to contribute to that discussion on this occasion. Rather, I should like to focus on a preliminary issue. It is one to which
In many minds, “capitalism” has come to be a bad word, nor does “free enterprise” sound much better. I remember seeing posters in Russia in the early nineteen-thirties depicting capitalists as Frankenstein monsters, as men with yellow-green faces, crocodile teeth, dressed in cutaways and adorned by top hats. What is the reason for this widespread
In the “German Democratic Republic” they tell the story about a weary old man who tries to gain entrance into the Red Paradise. A Communist Archangel holds him up at the gate and severely cross-questions him: “Where were you born?” “In an ancient bishopric.” “What was your citizenship?” “Prussian.” “Who was your father?” “A wealthy lawyer.” “What
Plato, in his Republic , tells us that tyranny arises, as a rule, from democracy. Historically, this process has occurred in three quite different ways. Before describing these several patterns of social change, let us state precisely what we mean by “democracy.” Pondering the question of “Who should rule,” the democrat gives his answer: “the
For the past sixteen months, headlines have been broadcast across our televisions cautioning us that the elderly and vulnerable populations are most at risk of this life-threatening COVID-19 virus if we do not stop the spread. Despite the preventative measures, long-term care (LTC) homes have been hit the hardest by the pandemic. In Ontario, of
This month, the United States once again celebrated her independence on the Fourth of July. After a year of lockdowns, masks, and now even mandatory vaccinations in workplaces and universities, the idea that the USA is a beacon of freedom to the rest of the globe seems far-fetched. This attitude was reiterated in the new Toby Keith song “ Happy
I was a small child when I first heard Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, spoken of. This was in the early 1960s, when I began to accompany my father on road trips he took with our family once or twice a year to Lisbon to visit and monitor the operation of the Portuguese branch office of our family’s life insurance business. I will never forget 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.