Barron’s April 19, 1999 An excerpt from: Power Corrupts One of Vice President Al Gore’s many crusades is his campaign to “root out corruption and cronyism.” Announcing an international conference in Washington to address corruption, he explained, “Tragically, our best worldwide efforts to build stronger economies and stronger democracies are
‘’The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.’’ James Madison Annals of Congress 434 (1789). Testing the Limits of Free Speech by Christopher Mayer Is the right to free speech, as Madison
The Eighteenth Amendment, providing for complete Prohibition in the United States, was ratified in 1919 and repealed in 1933. That is fourteen years of attempted interdiction of alcoholic beverages, from which we learned nothing. Prohibition was practiced by some states before and after the federal amendment, but it probably would never have been
Taxed to Death It ain’t over on April 15! If you stop, for example, for a $10 pizza on Thursday night to celebrate being done with the IRS for another year, the taxman will be right there to grab a slice or two. On top of paying the sales tax, you’ll also be picking up a major chunk of what the government charges the pizza shop owner for local
[From the Journal of Commerce , July 29, 1999] The stock market is at record highs. The economy has been booming. So why are many of America’s largest corporations still receiving handouts from Uncle Sam? The Budget Committee of the House of Representatives addressed this paradox during hearings late last month. Not only did public-interest groups
The journalist, television commentator, and former presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan has been sharply criticized by his fellow Republicans for allegedly betraying Republican party “free-market” principles in his book, The Great Betrayal . In the book Buchanan argues for protectionism and claims to have presented the strongest case ever
Two winters ago back-to-back Nor’easters slammed the mid-Atlantic coast in Maryland and Delaware, causing significant beach erosion and damage to vacation homes, boardwalks, and businesses. Being the owner of a condo in Ocean View, Delaware, I went down to check on any damage. Although it was the middle of February, the ocean resort towns were
The nauseating and psychophantic blather in the media about “America’s Royal Family” and its “tradition of public service” seemed to go on forever after JFK, Jr., “America’s Prince,” killed himself, his wife, and his sister-in-law in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard. The media circus ended its “coverage” with its anointment of Kathleen
*Presentation prepared for the Mises Institute’s conference, “Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets,” Toronto, Canada, September 16-17, 1999. In 1978 Michael Jensen and William Meckling, writing in the Financial Analysts Journal , offered an extraordinarily gloomy prediction for the future of capitalism: “The most spectacular period of
One way to prove that someone’s idea makes no sense is to show that it entails something absurd. So you say none of us can know anything. Doesn’t this mean you cannot either? So how then do you know none of us knows anything? You know the rest. This is called the “reductio ad absurdum” argument and it is used all the time to discredit flawed
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.