A hallmark of state failure is its incapacity to predict the market’s response to the policies it puts forth. Indeed, on many levels the state is powerless to change the market’s ends, instead only serving to redirect its means. Credit-card legislation passed last December sets forth a glut of regulations governing the ways in which credit-card
Property is that beautiful foundation from which libertarians approach conflicts. Accepting that the rights to property come through the rights of original homesteading, appropriation, and exchange eliminates the need to question motives or intentions in action. Without defined property rights, the public is left squabbling for some other rubric
One pernicious idea radiating throughout political circles is that advertising is a waste of resources. Undersized minds believe that deep within the inefficiencies of competition and capitalism rests needless spending on marketing to consumers. Why is it that otherwise intelligent individuals rely on such callous influences to pervert their
Every so often a book comes along that truly makes you appreciate writing as a subject; one that truly captures the imagery that we see and feel in our lives when we so often lack the time for reflection. Wĭthûr Wē is such a book. Yet, such a recommendation doesn’t quite do it justice because its beautiful imagery is only a backdrop for a rich
“someone’s ‘reputation’ is not and cannot be ‘owned’ by him, since it is purely a function of the subjective feelings and attitudes held by other people. But since no one can ever truly ‘own’ the mind and attitude of another, this means that no one can literally have a property right in his ‘reputation.’ A person’s reputation fluctuates all the
A 10% levy on tanning is set to transpire soon in an attempt to feed the federal government an estimated 2.7 billion in, supposedly, needed funding. The comedy is of course in their faulty economics. The bill differentiates between tanning salons and fitness centers that offer tanning packages. Tanning salons, like that of Sun Tan City or Solar
According to a recent article at The Wall Street journal, “Regulators’ appetite for calorie counts is about to extend beyond restaurants to thousands of other places that offer food, including airplanes, movie theaters and convenience stores” Convenience Stores? As if proper labeling will help consumers choose between glazed donuts, chocolate
Brick and mortar institutions of higher learning, while still in their early stages, are dying. You need only look at your recent Wall Street Journal or Financial Times newspapers for an example of discouraged companies refusing to hire overpriced labor. Colleges are simply churning out graduates who demand wage compensation for skills they
From article , Kelli Space, 23, graduated from Northeastern University in 2009 with a bachelor’s in sociology — and a whopping $200,000 in student loan debt. Space, who lives with her parents and works full-time, put up a Web site called TwoHundredThou.com soliciting donations to help meet her debt obligation, which is $891 a month. That number
We love to detest pipe dreams, but what constitutes a pipe dream? Of the many we could record somewhere in our numbering should be the simple belief in ‘change via talking’. That is, placing all our trust into a strategy of pontificating. Is it working? Henry Hazlitt once reflected “When I look back on my own career, I can find plenty of reasons
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.