If you want to expose the absurdity of the state, think governmental accounting. Really, there is no better way to show the impossibility of a government solution to scarcity than by reading the annual audit of any governmental entity. Goethe considered double-entry bookkeeping — the essence of accounting — to be “ one of the finest inventions of
The Free Market 32, No. 1 (January 2014) Although not related in quite the heroic terms it once was, the transcontinental railroads retain their place as one of the great alleged success stories of nineteenth-century America. According to the popular myths, the railroads, these great monuments to the ingenuity of American industrialists, united
The Free Market 13, no. 11 (November 1995) Copy Japan! was the cry of the 1980s. That country, economically speaking, appeared to have it all: an industrial policy that knew good and bad investments before markets themselves did, a disciplined workforce, and, most of all, an unshakable banking system in which everyone had confidence. Surveying
The Free Market 13, no. 11 (November 1995) Since October 1993, we have lived through the biggest buying spree of firearms in the history of the U.S. It began just before the passage of the Brady Bill and has yet to die down. And the boom in sales will continue so long as members of the governing elites are infatuated with the prospect of gun
The Free Market 13, no. 11 (November 1995) In the story of Rumpelstiltskin, an evil dwarf saves the life of a king’s bride by spinning flax into gold. But the price is high for performing this seeming miracle. She must give the dwarf her first-born child. The story could be an allegory for the “micro-credit” movement, the current enthusiasm of
The Free Market 13, no. 12 (December 1995) If it had the will, Congress could kill the redistributionist monster, the Welfare State, that’s consumed at least $5 trillion in wealth since the Great Society. How? Cut anywhere and everywhere, abolish whole agencies, and return the $350 billion saved from next year’s spending to the taxpayers in the
The Free Market 13, no. 12 (December 1995) Cheers to the governors of Alabama and Virginia for sending back millions of dollars earmarked for the “Goals 2000” program slated to be imposed on their states’ schools. After decades of federal attacks on local control, they have responded to voter demands that school centralization be halted. Today,
The Free Market 13, no. 12 (December 1995) Recycling has a high moral status, mostly because kids come home with bad information from schools and, in turn, use it to intimidate their parents. One poll revealed that 63% of kids have told Mom or Dad to recycle. Parents, be ashamed no more! Throw that trash away. There’s no virtue in recycling
The Free Market 13, no. 12 (December 1995) Washington agencies pay private-sector clipping services so senior management can know who their friends and enemies are. Journalists who write negatively about, say, the BATF, immediately enter the agency’s sights. Even if nothing is done with the information, the knowledge that it’s being collected
The Free Market 13, no. 12 (December 1995) Halloween has a socialist tenor. Menacing figures arrive at your door uninvited, demand your property, and threaten to perform an unspecified “trick” if you don’t fork over. That’s the way the government works in a nutshell. Thanksgiving has been reinterpreted as the white man, after burning, raping,
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.