Mises Wire

States Are Dying from Corruption and the Exponential

CapitalismPoliticsThe Police StateWorld History

Blog09/05/2023

The state is held together by violence and nothing else. There is no such thing as "the social contract." But even violence cannot make a state last past its time, as we saw with the USSR.

Read More

Let Staten Island Secede!

Decentralization and Secession

Blog09/04/2023

If Staten Island is allowed to secede, our national technocrats fear that might open up countless similar demands for self-determination across the nation. For the elites, the current status quo works quite well and they want to keep it that way. 

Read More

Totalitarian Ideals and Not Living by Lies

LanguagePhilosophyProgressivismThe Police StateWorld History

Blog09/04/2023

More than forty years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn urged his fellow Russians “not to live by lies.” In our politicized age, his words ring truer than ever.

Read More

Why Stabilization Policy is Destabilizing

The FedInflationMonetary PolicyU.S. Economy

Blog09/03/2023

The call for "price stabilization" was part of the recent Republican debate. Despite its attractive appearance, having the Fed try to "stabilize prices" is a very bad idea.

Read More

The Corrupt Bargain and the Preservation of Slavery

Blog09/02/2023

Slavery was driven into the heart of the new constitution: in the three-fifths clause, in the protection of slave importation for twenty years, in the fugitive slave clause, and even in the congressional power to suppress insurrections within the states.

Read More

There Is No Fed Magic Trick to Achieve a Soft Landing

The FedMonetary PolicyTaxes and SpendingU.S. Economy

Blog09/01/2023

There are no more rabbits for the Fed monetary magicians to pull out of their hats. In an economy addicted to artificially low interest rates, any more moves by the Fed will trigger an economic downturn.

Read More

Why the "Just Wage" Theory Doesn't Make Much Sense

Labor and Wages

Blog09/01/2023

Just-wage theory tells us that an employer cannot reduce his workers' wages below some presumed "cost of living." Yet, that same employer can be permitted to reduce the worker's wage to zero if the worker has been replaced by a machine. 

Read More