The Free Market 14, no. 1 (January 1996) The sad spectacle of political stalemate in the United States suggests that Americans are stuck with our current size and scope of government—and the lackluster economy that the government’s strictures cause. Is the welfare state a tangled web from which no nation can escape? Evidently not. Chileans and
The Free Market 14, no. 2 (February 1996) There aren’t many such businesses left, but you can still find traces. Walk (or, more prudently, drive) along 125th St. in Harlem, and you will see Philip Blick’s Hardware, Ida’s Costumers, Lazarus Clothes, Dr. Goldin’s Dental Offices, Benjamin Furs, and Dr. Irving Benjamin, Optometrist. Langsam and
The Free Market 14, no. 2 (February 1996) Want to hear what a scoff sounds like? The next time you’re talking to a political scientist, an economist, or a public employee, mention the possibility of a private road. Roads aren’t supposed to be private, right? They are supposed to be “public goods,” meaning that capitalists can’t or won’t build
The Free Market 14, no. 3 (March 1996) Look at the back of your computer monitor, the bottom of your table lamp, or the label on your hair dryer. Chances are you will see the symbol “UL” with a circle around it. It stands for Underwriters Laboratories, a firm headquartered in Northbrook, Ill., and an unsung hero of the market economy. Most
The Free Market 14, no. 4 (April 1996) In the welfare debates, Congress spared what is perhaps the most objectionable part of the welfare state, cash subsidies for illegitimate children. The opponents had committed a terrible error early in the debate. They granted the first philosophical assumption of the program’s supporters: that we all
The Free Market 14, no. 4 (April 1996) Should free enterprise stop at the border? Of course not, and the attempt to make it so can drive us to ruin. Yet politicians are hammering free trade. Long-refuted myths are back in full force, and the voters are getting a miseducation in the economics of autarky. The politicians criticizing free trade are
The Free Market 14, no. 4 (April 1996) There it is, on the cover of Newsweek , in thick, blood-red letters: “Corporate Killers.” What follows is mug-like photo after photo, some of them grainy, of rich white men, all menacing and “greedy.” They are the CEOs of America’s top corporations. The story’s thesis is simple: they are destroying the
The Free Market 14, no.4 (April 1996) Gus Stelzer, a retired General Motors senior executive, is on a rampage against free trade. It makes sense from his point of view. Like most big business, GM does not welcome competition from abroad, however much it’s spurred product improvements over the years. It turns to the government to tax imports that
The Free Market 14, no. 4 (April 1996) Leftist critics of capitalism like Labor Secretary Robert Reich have criticized the alleged shortsightedness of American corporations, while praising the supposedly longer-range perspectives of their Japanese competitors. Well, the Nissan Motor Corporation just proved that it can be every bit as
The Free Market 14, no. 5 (May 1996) It was November 25, 1945, and the overpaid workers at General Motors were striking, again. Their gripe? Company profits were up, but wages were not. They demanded a shorter workweek and higher pay. Then as now, this government-backed union was using its legal privileges to stick it to consumers and employers.
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.