In his recent Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Help the Third World Help Itself” (November 29, 1999), Kofi Annan advanced a statist agenda for improvement in the developing world. This is what we would expect from the acting secretary-general of the United Nations. Improvement necessarily always begins with government for people in positions
The aftermath of impeachment mess has inspired handwringing and rhetorical gibberish on all sides, but precious little insight. What follows are two commentaries that rise above the rest, the first written for the The Weekly Standard , and the other written exclusively for mises.org. The Weekly Standard February 22, 1999 Think of the impeachment
The Times (London) Friday, March 26, 1999 Two cheers for Colonel Tony Benn Nato was set up to fight a war in Europe. The Red Army invades, Nato fights back; Turks fight for Norway, French fight for Greece. What an extraordinary irony it is that Nato should not, in the event, have had to fight any war in Europe, but then chose, after the Cold War,
This article by A.N. Wilson is highly significant, not only for his case against the Balkan intervention but also for his overall perspective on the costs of war. The Independent (UK) April 25, 1999 Was the Second World War worth 56 million lives? We had grown used to having a prime minister who was ignorant, but now a much more worrying thought
The Eighteenth Amendment, providing for complete Prohibition in the United States, was ratified in 1919 and repealed in 1933.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
The feds have decided there’s no difference between men and women. The result? There’s no men’s wrestling at Illinois State. None at Notre Dame. None at Princeton. The soccer players, too, are gone from Illinois State. In a recent two year period, 24 colleges and universities did away with men’s wrestling. Another 31 dropped men’s golf. Men’s
As we turn to a new century next week, the good news is that the most murderous 100 years in history is over, a prime reason to raise a glass of spirits at midnight. Topping the list of the century’s worst butchers are the Russians and Chinese, along with their assorted statist cousins. Collectively, since the time of the Bolsheviks’ coup in 1917,
[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
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.