There are two deficits that we hear about most: the federal government’s deficit and the balance of payments of the United States. They are linked, but they are very different in their effects. The federal deficit is seen by Keynesians as mostly a benefit and by Austrians as mostly a liability, and for the same reason: higher government spending.
There is a fight going on inside the Cato Institute , which is a very well-funded libertarian think tank that deals with policy issues. That is what think tanks do. They are policy oriented. Cato is a nonprofit organization that is literally as well as figuratively inside the Washington Beltway, close to the corridors of power. Ed Crane runs it.
“Centralization induces apoplexy at the center and anemia at the extremities.” – Lamenais The present political system is clearly insane. It suffers from schizophrenia. Around the world, almost no one trusts the politicians, yet almost everyone votes for incumbent politicians who promise to reform the government. Voters now suspect (correctly)
What is the longest-running socialist experiment? What has its success been? If someone asked you to defend the idea that socialism has failed, what would you offer as your example? Where did modern socialism begin? In America. That’s right: in the land of the free and the home of the braves. On Indian reservations. They were invented to control
If you have seen the stage version of Peter Pan , you know the scene in which the audience is asked to clap if they want Tinker Bell to live. It’s time. Janet Daley wrote a provocative essay in London’s Telegraph on the day before the Greek election (June 16). She did her best to explain why the eurozone is in crisis. Europe’s leaders are living
Free trade is the litmus test of economic reasoning. It has been ever since David Hume wrote his 1752 essay on commerce : Foreign trade, by its imports, furnishes materials for new manufactures; and by its exports, it produces labour in particular commodities, which could not be consumed at home. In short, a kingdom, that has a large import and
This may sound odd. Conservatives don’t love taxes. They want lower taxes. Right? They want lower taxes and smaller government. I wish that were true. It isn’t. Alexander Hamilton was a crusader for higher taxes and a larger national government in the 1790s. He wanted higher taxes in order to raise money for a higher federal debt. He wanted higher
In a previous article, “ Tax-Loving Conservatives ,” I wrote about an invisible line down the middle of your street. Jones lives on the other side. You live on your side. Jones makes you an offer to sell something 10 percent cheaper than Smith sells. Smith lives on your side of the street. Smith gets Brown and Green to impose a 25 percent sales
I have found over the years that when I debate with people who promote tariffs, meaning sales taxes on imported goods that are enforced by people with badges and guns, they always adopt arguments that apply only to America’s side of the border. They refuse to adopt those very same arguments for people on the other side of the border. I challenge
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.