The Free Market 17, no. 6 (June 1999) At the American Revolution, the founders clearly recognized the defects of representative government. Pamphleteer John Cartwright in 1776 derided “that poor consolatory word, representation, with the mere sound of which we have so long contented ourselves.” “Slavery by Parliament” was the phrase commonly
The Free Market 17, no. 6 (June 1999) For the last two years, the federal government has attempted to construct a Consolidated Financial Statement of its financial status for the previous fiscal year. This statement is an audit of the financial status of 24 cabinet level departments and agencies and is an attempt to account for the government’s
The Free Market 17, no. 6 (June 1999) After the US government attacked Yugoslavia, the first act of the Republicans was to take tax cuts off the table (if they were ever really on it). This symbolic gesture underscores a point: when a war is on, the work of liberty is off. For this reason, everyone concerned about freedom must oppose war. At the
The Free Market 17, no. 6 (June 1999) Nowadays every frontier of human achievement faces a regulatory barrier that must be crossed. Those regulatory barriers are often prompted by interest group fears based more in political theory than reality. In particular, biotechnology is one of the more contested and feared additions to man’s arsenal of
The Free Market 17, no. 7 (July 1999) Free markets may be productive, a common complaint runs, but they lead to unjust results. For instance, writing in The New Republic (March 29, 1999) Cass R. Sunstein of the University of Chicago School of Law closes a book review this way: A familiar problem with unrestricted free markets is that they can
The Free Market 17, no. 7 (July 1999) The internet provides a remarkable test case of the free market. What have we learned? Business doesn’t need government to succeed. Independence is the trait that sums up the attitude of all successful web entrepreneurs. But this model of market success is not to be found in most textbooks of American
The Free Market 17, no. 7 (July 1999) On the wall outside my office, the gift of Nelson White, is a framed piece of money: a 500 billion dinar note issued by the government of Yugoslavia. It was printed in 1993, when it would buy about a gallon of milk. And that was before the inflation really got bad. By January 1994, the rate would reach 313
The Free Market 17, no. 7 (July 1999) The international socialist movement, led by Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, is attempting to revive the disastrous policy of war socialism with which the current century began. Four recent events make clear their intentions: the Nato war on
The Free Market 17, no. 7 (July 1999) According to the hoopla, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995 as an instrument of global free trade. Instead, it is proving to be a vehicle for corruption, economic reprisals, and politicization of trade. The agency’s true character was revealed when the city of Seattle, host of the
The Free Market 17, no. 8 (August 1999) When Janet Yellen, Clinton’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, resigned her post, she said it was for purely personal reasons. But according to inside reports, the personal reasons included frustration at having to lie day-in and day-out. No matter what the economic data of the week, she was
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.