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) The dialectic goes like this. First, an artist—I use the term broadly—exhibits something pornographic, blasphemous, or otherwise egregiously offensive. His opus may well be an action, as when an HIV-positive “performance artist” had his back cut open before a surprised audience in Minneapolis. Next, the
The Free Market 14, no. ( 1996) The Federal Reserve is the most powerful yet least questioned of all Washington institutions. It can make or break elections, bail out entire governments, send the stock market to the stratosphere, or bankrupt whole industries. Yet it operates with less oversight than the CIA. In the past, politicians have only
The Free Market 14, no. 5 (May 1996) The 1996 blizzard dumped three feet of snow on the Washington, D.C., area. The event proved once again that statist economists, armed with their “market failure” theories, perceive reality exactly the opposite from the way it is. It is government, not the free market, that is inherently plagued with
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.
The Free Market 14, no. 5 (May 1996) To the outside world, it appears that all economists agree: free trade can never be compromised. Inside, the picture is far more complicated. Good economists, preeminently the Austrian School, favor liberty across the board. Yet among the mainstream, economists who favor big government at home likely reject
The Free Market 14, no. 6 (June 1996) Hollywood ain’t what it used to be. For the most part—and with known exceptions—the quality and content of today’s movies have plummeted when compared to the Golden Age. With the movies’ parade of sex and violence, they’re an easy target for cultural critics to say capitalism inflicts grave damage on the
The Free Market 14, no. 6 (June 1996) “Every great statesman must necessarily fail,” wrote Andrew Lytle in a moving tribute to John C. Calhoun. The reason: the statesman is driven by high ideals like freedom, self-government, justice, and constitutionalism, which will never be perfectly realized. Yet even in failure, the statesman preserves
The Free Market 14, no. 6 (June 1996) Government bureaucrats look out for their own kind. Entrepreneur John Shanahan, the man behind “Hooked on Phonics,” found that out the hard way when he developed a program that taught his son how to read after the California public schools could not. Literacy rates in the United States have plunged since
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.