Getting Welfare Economics Right Mises Review 8, No. 3 (Fall 2002) THE ETHICS AND ECONOMICS OF MINIMALIST GOVERNMENT Timothy P. Roth Edward Elgar, 2002, viii + 134 pgs. Professor Roth differs from most of his fellow economists. He finds the philosophical foundations of the standard model of welfare economics grossly deficient, and his book mounts
Marx the Capitalist Mises Review 8, No. 3 (Fall 2002) HOW DEMOCRATIC IS THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION? Meghnad Desai Verso, 2002, xi + 372 pgs. Professor Desai has given us two books in one: a new interpretation of Marxism, and a history of twentieth-century capitalism. I propose to concentrate, with one exception, on the first of these, owing to
The Free Market 20, no. 2 (February 2002) Consumer protection regulation is the consumer’s worst nightmare. In fact, it is not protective at all. It is merely another one of those regulatory rackets that has the appearance of providing necessary security for a collective group in an entirely positive sense while encompassing no negatives. After
The Free Market 20, no. 3 (March 2002) My first “real job,” the summer before my senior year in high school, was selling shoes in a small retail store in my hometown. The job paid only what was then the federal minimum wage, $3.35 an hour, but, then, my labor was probably barely worth that. At least the work was honest and productive. The
The Free Market 20, no. ( 2002) Proponents of socially responsible investing, or SRI, promote it as a way to invest in stocks while having “positive social impact” at the same time. Beneath the surface, everyone knows that what SRI really promotes is old-fashioned socialist ideology employed in the name of investment. The stated objectives of
The Free Market 20, no. 5 (May 2002) We are inundated by the forces of malevolence and deceit: terrorists, lying CEOs, stock hustlers, power-mad politicians, conniving regulators, conspiring pressure groups, and paid-off pundits. They seem to be everywhere. Revelations about Enron and its political connections remind us that even the business
The Free Market 20, no. 6 (June 2002) As oil and gasoline prices begin their annual rite of spring, I am waiting for another rite that occurs among media pundits and some economists—who ought to know better. That particular ritual is the accusation levied against oil companies that they are “manipulating the market” in order to force up prices.
The Free Market 20, no. 7 (July 2002) Economic life is an intricate global system of exchange, one that works without any central direction. It generates prosperity and its own form of order within the framework of liberty. This is what is sometimes termed the magic of the marketplace, and we should never under-estimate its power. We can see by
The Free Market 20, no. 8 (August 2002) P.T. Bauer passed away this spring most likely never having attended a U2 concert. But the eminent English economist had known many people like the Irish superband’s lead singer, Paul Hewson , aka Bono Vox. “Many supporters of official foreign aid,” he wrote more than 20 years ago, “are genuinely and
The Free Market 20, no. 9 (September 2002) The Enron scandal fueled the drive for campaign finance reform well enough for a campaign finance reform (CFR) bill to get signed into law. However, immediately after this occurred, various interest groups presented legal challenges to the new legislation based on its questionable compliance with the
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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.