[In April 1993, Murray Rothbard wrote on the Texas water problem, explaining how the government policy was on a disastrous course that could lead to massive drought. That day has finally arrived.] We all know how the environmentalists, seemingly determined at all costs to save the spotted owl, delivered a crippling blow to the logging industry
[ For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973)] All right: Even if we concede that full private property in resources and the free market will conserve and create resources, and do it far better than government regulation, what of the problem of pollution? Wouldn’t we be suffering aggravated pollution from unchecked “capitalist greed”?
The EPA has recently begun flexing its muscle and further interfering with the market economy. Under the auspices of a still-developing policy on environmental justice, the EPA has assumed power to determine what industrial plants and waste sites can be built where, and even the number of workers at a plant. The EPA maintains that a
[A version of tihs article was previously blogged on Mises.org here , and inspired a spirited debate. The author reworked the piece for the Mises.org front page. The blog item remains the same.] I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry.
[An MP3 audio version of this article, read by Floy Liley, is available as a free download .] Today is Earth day, and a week ago we “celebrated” tax day. It is fitting, in a sense, that Earth Day and Tax Day are only one week apart. Those who blame global warming on human activity see taxation as an effective and desirable means of preventing
On February 7, 2009, and in the week that followed, bushfires ignited across Victoria, in Australia. [1] The fires raged through many towns, destroying at least 1,834 homes, [2] and killing at least 209 people, [3] more fatalities than any bushfire in Australian history. [4] Let’s compare: in the 1983 “Ash Wednesday” bushfires, seventy-five
These days, explicit arguments in favor of fascism and the ideology of unlimited state power are, how shall I put this, ineffective at convincing the masses. Though people still adore the fascist ideology of the boundless power of the state and its fusion of public and private business, this is only so long as it is not given its proper name.
“The notion that ‘Mother Earth’ would ever have cause to complain of its treatment at the hands of humans is pure mysticism.” I’ll bet you forgot to buy a card and gift, didn’t you? Boy, is your face red! Did you even know it’s International Mother Earth Day today, citizen? Socialist despot Evo Morales and his buddies at the United Nations sure
It is fitting that the Mises Institute is releasing the Bastiat Collection on the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina . Though hundreds of years have passed since Frédéric Bastiat, the beauty of sound economic reasoning is that it does not change over time. In particular, his essay, “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen,” is
The April 20 explosion and subsequent round-the-clock oil spill from a BP-operated deepwater drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico 40 miles off the Louisiana coast has generated justifiable anger across the nation. It’s also generated calls for strict sanctions against BP, the most drastic of which is confiscation of all company assets. The front
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.