Mises Wire

Is "cosmopolitan" a slur?

If I were a corporate shill, the last thing I'd want is a free-market, laissez-faire economic system. 

The main indicators of the economic cycle point to a possible crisis and recession in the US economy. and maybe also in Europe.

Venezuelan politicians hoping to replace the current regime in Venezuela mostly offer just re-treads of the failed socialism the country has endured for decades.

Henry Hazlitt's The Failure of the "New Economics" published in 1959, is still the best refutation of Keynesian economics to be found anywhere — sixty years later.

The theory goes like this: capitalism combines with consumerism and advertising to make us sad, lonely, and forever chasing after material goods. So we consume endlessly and the Machiavellian capitalists reap the rewards. It's not a great theory.

At this point mal-investments and false market signals have been accumulating for many years. The effects can be seen not necessarily in a future "crash" but also in our current weak and declining levels of economic growth.

As some conservatives increasingly argue for an ever larger state to support "families" and "society," Burke showed through both words and personal actions that the real answer to building up civil society lies in the private sector and not in government programs.

Competition for wealth and social status was hardly created by the capitalist system. People have always competed for these things. Thanks to capitalism, though, this competition is now less violent, and true poverty is easier to avoid.

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.