Bureaucracy and Regulation

Occupational licensing may increase quality for some higher income customers. But licensing increases monopoly power for dominant firms while driving lower-income customers out of the marketplace.

Mises states, quite rightly, that anyone who advocates governmental dictation over one area of individual consumption must logically come to advocate complete dictation over all choices.

Shannon O'Toole's memoir on working for the FDIC helps us understand why some have taken to calling federal employment "white collar welfare."

Even if laws against slander and libel appear good in theory, in practice they are all too often used by the powerful to silence the weak. A respect for free speech demands defamation laws be kept very weak.

Recycling isn't free. It requires the use of time and resources, many of which end up wasted. But politicians keep insisting that recycling is always a win-win, even though we have many examples to the contrary.

It is highly unlikely that Woke Big Business on its own can turn the US into a totalitarian society. Historically speaking, business policies have followed the lead of governments, not the other way around. The state remains the real threat.

Rather than pay his campaign workers more out of his personal wealth, Bernie Sanders is cutting employee hours and scaling back campaign events — thus illustrating how minimum wage hikes are a problem for workers.

Presented at Mises University 2019.

Watch comedian Dave Smith's set at Mises University.

Presented at Mises University 2019.