A new study suggests that private schools are not inherently better than public schools. Surprised? Enough people were such that the study, funded by the US Department of Education, has created a stir in the education arena, as well as in the national news . But I want to argue that the results are meaningless, and for reasons not having to do
Market exchange is not based on the requirement that both parties appraise the goods about to be exchanged at equal value. Instead, market exchange is based on both parties benefiting from a two-way, unequal valuation of the goods to be exchanged. An example from my youth: During my high school years in the early 1980s, I had purchased a
Despite what you were taught in school, governance is ugly; in all forms, and at all times. Don’t believe me? Attend a meeting of a local governing entity. You will find the council — omnipotent by vote, omniscient by delusion — seated before you at the table. All night long, they’ll bicker and battle all the while proposing and dissecting plans
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
Words are funny. Strung together, they can have multiple meanings depending on the perceived context and reader’s viewpoint. I can make a statement with the intent to convey argument A, but the reader interprets my statement as not-A. An example: Trotsky, in “What Next? Vital Question for the German Proletariat” (published as “How Mussolini
Ketones are everywhere. And so are associated high fat, low carbohydrate diets, as well as eating patterns that include intermittent fasting – all championed as solutions to obesity, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc. While the diets have existed for some time, the addition of intermittent fasting is new, though ubiquitous. So much so that I took notice
The Free Market 25, no. 10 (November 2007) A persistent virus is beginning to spread, threatening to sweep the country as the next great epidemic. What is the ill? The Fourier Complex of course. The Fourier Complex ? Yes, it is the mental state—syndrome—identified by its vile symptoms: extreme envy, fear of the free market, belief in
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.