Corporate Welfare

Henry George's 1886 book on trade is a devastating critique of the arguments of protectionists.

Protection or Free Trade, published in 1886, is undoubtedly one of the most significant works ever written on the subject, writes Laurence Vance.

For two years, we have been innudated with denunciations of "corporate greed" that has supposedly created scandal and led to prosecutions of CEOs, writes Gary Galles.

Competition is a productive aspect of the market economy, writes Ninos Malek, but sometimes businesses urge the government to intervene when their competitors pose a threat. This is the driving force behind antitrust legislation.

Consumers are eating shrimp like never before, writes Don Mathews, so why is the industry so unhappy?

So Greenspan says that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are so big and so out of control that they represent a threat to the whole financial system. Well, asks Frank Shostak, just how does Greenspan think they got to be that way? Might it have something to do with a central bank that guarantees the life of not only these two institutions but every bank in the US?

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

Many pundits have attempted to diagnose why such a wave of scandals and record bankruptcies occurred when it did. Most suggestions fail to address underlying causes. The real lesson of Enron, argue Steinreich and Oglesby, is that significant corporate corruption will end when one-party rule of corporate America does. Until then, expect more Enrons.

Hardly a day goes by when Mark Brandly doesn't observe confusion on the subject of international trade, from pundits who blame it all of American economic and social to those who think trade can only thrive in the context of treaties and war. This primer corrects most of the big mistakes.

The answers we receive from the academics in response to the collapse of the Enron Corporation and the implosion of other firms are not answers at all. At best, they deal only with effects, or, at worst, reverse the pattern of cause and effect. To put it another way, writes William Anderson, the people who are supposed to know the answers don’t even know what questions they should pursue.