The Libertarian Forum , edited by Murray N. Rothbard from 1969 to 1984, had a small — even tiny — circulation but it forged the intellectual edifice known as libertarianism. Month after month, the newsletter thrilled, enlightened, shocked, and awed its subscribers. Everything was on the table. And here are all the issues again, as smart,
Modern liberalism works in a simple but effective manner: liberals Find Problems. This is not a difficult task, considering that the world abounds with problems waiting to be discovered. At the heart of these problems is the fact that we do not live in the Garden of Eden: that there is a scarcity of resources available for us to achieve all of our
The Free Market 6, no. 12 (December 1988) There is no clearer demonstration of the essential identity of the two political parties than their position on the minimum wage. The Democrats propose to raise the legal minimum wage from $3.35 an hour, to which it had been raised by the Reagan administration during its allegedly free-market salad days
The Free Market 7, no. 1 (January 1989) One of the ironic but unfortunately enduring legacies of eight years of Reaganism has been the resurrection of Keynesianism. From the late 1930s until the early 1970s, Keynesianism rode high in the economics profession and in the corridors of power in Washington, promising that, so long as Keynesian
The Free Market 7, no. 4 (April 1989) Q. When is a tax not a tax? A. When it’s a “fee.” It was only a question of time before we would discover what form of creative semantics President Bush would use to wiggle out of his “read my lips” pledge (bolstered by the Darman “walks like a duck” corollary) never ever to raise taxes. Unfortunately, it
The Free Market 7, no. 6 (June 1989) Quick: what do the following world-famous men have in common: John Kenneth Galbraith, Donald J. Trump, and David Rockefeller? What values could possibly be shared by the socialist economist who got rich by writing best-selling volumes denouncing affluence; the billionaire wheeler-dealer; and the fabulous head
The Free Market 7, no. 8 (August 1989) It is truly sobering these days to turn from a contemplation of American politics to world affairs. In the United States, the hot issue has been the piteous complaint about the “martyrdom” of Jim Wright, Tony Coelho, and John Tower to the insidious advance of “excessive” ethics. If we tighten up ethics and
The Free Market 7, no. 12 (December 1989) Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions, occur from time to time, and many victims of such disasters have an unfortunate tendency to seek out someone to blame. Or rather, to pay for their aid and rehabilitation. These days, Papa Government (a stand-in for the hapless
The Free Market 8, no. 3 (March 1990) It is generally agreed, both inside and outside Eastern Europe, that the only cure for their intensifying and grinding poverty is to abandon socialism and central planning, and to adopt private property rights and a free-market economy. But a critical problem is that Western conventional wisdom counsels
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.