Free Markets

A good story, told through a novel, play, or film is more likely to affect one’s views of economics and human nature than is any well-footnoted and didactic tome.

The current tenancy laws do not promote conflict resolution and peaceful cooperation, as laws are intended to do. Under the current regulatory system, a landlord has minimal to no benefits from providing high quality service, quite the opposite of what good laws are supposed to do.

The demand for online educational programs illustrates how useful they are in the marketplace, and the Mises Institute is already part of this new world of higher education. We seek to become the private online university of the future for Austrian economics, libertarianism, and related areas.
 

If we seek to eliminate or regulate insider trading, we have only to allow free competition among stock markets and eliminate legal barriers to entry. Companies would choose what stock market to list with depending upon the behavior and rules of each. Consumers always win when there is competition.

Interviewed by host Alan Butler, Bob Murphy talks about a course he is teaching entitled “Introduction to the Free Market” (http://acad

A low wage constitutes a competitive advantage for less-skilled workers that serves to protect them from competition from more-skilled workers. In other words, a wage of $7.25 per hour for fast-food workers serves to protect those workers from competition from workers able to earn $8 to $15 per hour in other lines of work.

Japan suffers the universal results of high taxation and the wide variety of social problems that follow. No longer is one income enough to make ends meet. Government regulations make it difficult for new industries to compete against the established giants and most industries behave like state-owned enterprises.

The legal incentives created by prohibition lead to artificially restricted production, decreasing the supply, and causing the price to skyrocket. Prohibition transforms users into criminals by making their drug use a large financial burden, enticing many to commit real crimes. All of this is a disaster for the addicts.

The “public issues” of today are crucially dependent on an understanding of sound economics. Virtually every major “public” or “social” issue involves proposals for government interference with the market. That’s why it’s crucial for lovers of liberty to understand how a voluntary economic marketplace works, in order to explode the myths and lies of its enemies.

The notion that unpatented medical technologies are not feasible is historically false. The <em>British Medical Journal</em> challenged its readership to submit a list of the most noteworthy medical and pharmaceutical inventions throughout history. Only two of them have remotely <em>anything </em>to do with patents.