I had a busy weekend. I dug a hole, filled it in, and dug it out once again. I shoveled my driveway and then threw the snow back so that I could shovel it a second time. I vacuumed the carpet in our family room, shook out a bag of Cheerio dust, and vacuumed the same as before. Based on the prevailing view of political economy, I worked and
“A man may cherish democracy during his time in the majority and worship it when his views are no longer in the majority. But is this freedom?” Who benefits from democracy? To believe the standard reply, the masses — the demos — benefit from majority rule. I no longer accept that notion. I recently finished Étienne de La Boétie’s The Politics of
Over the past fifteen years, I have seen the state slowly take over my local government, replacing a friendly, ineffective mishmash of neighbors with a professional bureaucracy set apart from its taxpaying masses. Consider a friend of mine, a man who years ago served as a township trustee. Sure, he received a small salary for the privilege of
“There is nothing which could be called ‘free’ capital. Capital is always in the form of definite capital goods. These capital goods are better utilizable for some purposes, less utilizable for others, and absolutely useless for still other purposes.” – Ludwig von Mises, Human Action ( Chapter XVIII, “Action in the Passing of Time” ) Is capital an
Maybe it was the holiday spirit. Or maybe it was the impatient line of holiday shoppers anxiously waiting for me to finish paying the cashier. Regardless, I let an economic fallacy slide without comment. As the cashier was totaling my bill, she asked if she could pack some of my goods in the plastic bag I was holding; a plastic bag that previously
The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production. They are at the helm and steer the ship. A superficial observer would believe that they are supreme. But they are not. They are bound to obey unconditionally the captain’s orders. The captain is the consumer. Neither the
Art Carden’s great article on windfall profits brings up an issue that really gets under my skin. Carden notes, “People often point to the run-up in gas prices — some gas stations were charging over $3 a gallon — after the September 11 attacks as an example of firms enjoying windfall profits.” Ah, yes, the price gougers. In the late morning and
The nature of man being what it is, the desire for fun and leisure is limitless. After a hard week of working and saving, Friday night is enough reason to open the barn door for music and celebration. Farmer Bob woke Monday to face another week of reaping that which he had sown. He knows the routine: out to the fields in the morning for a long day
Does government function as a club or a prison? In particular, are local taxing districts — local governmental entities — simply clubs where residents voluntarily pay fees set by an elected board? Or, are these districts nothing more than prisons, so to speak, where the governing body extracts fines and penalties from land and labor? First, let us
Two articles from a recent edition of The Columbus Dispatch make use of meaningless aggregations. First off is the collective political force. A columnist writes , “But in November, voters elected a Democratic House and a Republican Senate to safeguard Ohio’s cashbox.” As if voters across the state conspired to split the Ohio legislature.
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.