The Free Market 24, no. 3 (March 2004) A common accusation against the Mises Institute is that it is obsessed with tracing social and economic problems to the state, and, in doing so, it oversimplifies the world. The state is not all bad, people say, and some of its actions yield positive results. It is not inconceivable, they say, that the
The Free Market 24, no. 5 (May 2004) A popular economics textbook that I once had to use while working as an adjunct professor had a section on government regulation in which the authors likened it to the placement of a stop sign at a busy intersection or a rule that was meant to prevent individuals from behaving dishonestly. The authors were
The Free Market 24, no. 7 (July 2004) T he psychology of the anti-market left can be a puzzle, but even more confounding is the mentality of the anti-market right. There are agrarians, medievalists, and nationalists, and, above all, the neoconservatives, who dread the market as much as any socialist from days of yore. Their critique differs, but
The Free Market 24, no. 12 (December 2004) T wo years ago I was on a faculty committee to choose the one book that incoming freshmen would be asked to read and discuss in discussion groups during freshman orientation. It was the School of Business’s turn to choose the book, so I thought it would be valuable, for once, for the freshmen to read a
The Free Market 26, no. 3 (March 2005) I didn’t think anyone would dare to apply Bastiat’s Broken Window fallacy to the human tragedy that played itself out along the rim of the Indian Ocean, but sadly, faith in economic fallacies is even more common than deadly tsunamis. Many economists mistakenly believe taxation can be good for economic
The Free Market 26, no. 3 (March 2005) In the ten years between 1994 and 2004, a dramatic turn took place within the Republican Party. The themes of the 1994 election weren’t just about cutting government, though that was the central campaign promise of that generation of elected officials sent to Washington. The core was more revolutionary than
The Free Market 26, no. 5 (May 2005) C onsiderable public discussion and debate now rages over Social Security and how to reform it. As the system currently stands, as early as 2018, it will be necessary to finance a growing portion of its outlays to retirees by means of outside sources of funds, since at that point the sums paid into the system
The Free Market 26, no. 6 (June 2005) E conomic downturns are precipitated by credit expansions and contractions but monetary policy cannot alone account for the length, breadth, and shape. This is inspired by other factors. So, no, the Austrian theory of the business cycle does not explain the length and breadth of the Great Depression. The
The Free Market 26, no. 6 (June 2005) I n his newly-released federal budget, President George W. Bush promises to reduce farm subsidies. Predictably, on the day the budget was made public there were well-choreographed “protests” by all the usual suspects, mostly millionaire corporate farmers camped out at the Mayflower or Four Seasons hotels in
The Free Market 26, no. 7 (July 2005) The Bush administration has wrapped up yet another big campaign to bolster support for its Social Security proposal. The latest development is Bush’s suggestion to index benefits for wealthy retirees to prices (rather than wages), which is effectively a cut in promised benefits. The proposal disappointed
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.