The Free Market 15, no. 5 (May/June 1997) Some scientists boycotted a recent conference that examined the EPA’s draconian proposal to regulate ultra-small soot particles. The sponsoring organization, the Annapolis Center, gets corporate money. According to Harvard epidemiologist Joel Schwartz, that makes the event look “like a set-up job.” The
The Free Market 15, no. 5 (May/June 1997) The most encouraging trend of our time is the widespread loss of faith in government. No longer do people look to the government as the great problem solver, economic planner, social unifier, or cultural czar. The government is more likely to be seen for what it is, a haven for grafters, liars, and
The Free Market 15, no. 7 (July 1997) Jack Kemp, former HUD secretary and failed vice presidential candidate, recently proved that academic leftists aren’t the only ones intolerant of politically incorrect ideas. He interrupted a luncheon speech I was giving at an academic conference by squirreling around in his seat, ostentatiously rolling his
The Free Market 15, no. 7 (July 1997) The 5th Street Theater in Seattle, Washington, is one of a dwindling number of houses of its kind. It receives no government money whatsoever. Its revenues come from a permanent endowment and ticket sales to its popular, if small-scale shows. Its charter prevents it from raising money from other private
The Free Market 15, no. 7 (July 1997) The World Trade Organization has a fantastic but undeserved reputation in international circles as the world’s premier institution of free trade. Despite all of the WTO’s pretensions to greatness, this glorified trade-management bureaucracy exists only to promote the interests of well-heeled trade lobbyists
The Free Market 15, no. 7 (July 1997) If you love bad news, devote your life to studying government. You’ll learn about the colossal waste of NASA, the diseases spread by the school-lunch program, the lies of the FBI, the corruption subsidized by foreign aid, and the debauchery of the military base. So where can we turn for good news? To private
The Free Market 15, no. 8 (August 1997) An hour before midnight, February 3, 1997, a sheriff’s car with its lights flashing pulled up to a middle-class home in Effingham County, Georgia. It had come for Debbie Gaskin, wife and mother. She was arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted, and photographed. She posted bond, and was released. What crime had
The Free Market 15, no. 8 (August 1997) Amid media fanfare, the Pentagon has released its report on U.S. military and foreign policy into the next century. The report says that the U.S. should retain the military capability to fight two foreign wars at once. The Cold War may be over, the Pentagon admits, but it warns against any attempt to pare
The Free Market 15, no. 8 (August 1997) Our domestic automakers produce fine cars and trucks that people freely choose to buy. They make lots of money doing this. So why is the federal government shoveling hundred of millions of dollars annually in corporate welfare their way? Uncle Sam says it’s all in a good cause, funding research to build an
The Free Market 15, no. 8 (August 1997) The Clinton administration has targeted a new batch of global enemies. It wants to crush them with the usual mix of negotiation, treaty, and enforcement through spying, fines, and propaganda. It’s all in a day’s work for the “world’s indispensable nation”—the administration’s new name for itself. Oddly,
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.