As you read this, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is deciding whether the Internet file-sharing service Napster will continue operating or be shut down by a lower court’s injunction issued last July. The injunction was stayed by a two-judge panel of the same appeals court and allows Napster to keep
A recent trip to Santa Monica, California, provided me with a clear explanation of why Californians, despite all their wealth, talent, and resourcefulness, have the energy supply system of a Third World country. Like so many tiny Latin American dictatorships, or the outer provinces of India, Californians can no longer rely on a steady supply of
In a free economy, under what conditions may employees be hired and fired? And should discrimination be tolerated in the workplace? The answer to these questions depends upon who is the source of the discrimination. From a free market perspective, the only factor that matters is whether or not the government is involved in the discrimination. If
From shiftless bum to employee. Who can argue with that? Apparently the usual suspects at Commercial Alert, one of Ralph Nader’s anti-capitalist “watchdog” organizations. Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, said the homeless who act as billboards should be paid minimum wage. “If they don’t get minimum wage, this is exploitation,” he said.
Article one Section 8 of the U S Constitution states that the “congress shall have the power to regulate commerce among the several states.” This so-called “commerce clause” is the legal bedrock for all federal regulation of business activity that crosses state lines. Every piece of federal economic regulation from the Sherman Antitrust Act
Terrorists killed nearly three thousand people on September 11, 2001, but that figure is swamped by the number of people who die each year while waiting for an organ transplant. More than three thousand died in the year 2001 waiting for a kidney transplant. Thousands also died waiting for livers, hearts, and other vital organs, and the number of
When people want to add extra “oomph” to negative depictions of self-owners acting without coercion — that is, market competition under capitalism — they turn to name-calling. One of the most effective forms is describing such competition as dog-eat-dog. When that characterization is accepted, the mountain of evidence in favor of voluntary social
The meaning of the government’s proposal to break Microsoft into two separate companies, the one confined to producing Windows, the other confined to producing application software, is that one or the other of these two major branches of personal computer software is to be closed to the productive genius of America’s most successful software
Paul Krugman is very upset. In his Monday New York Times Op-Ed column this week , he complains that while the real incomes of the great majority of Americans have essentially stagnated or declined over the last thirty-five years, “income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the
Many states have enacted higher minimum wage laws than are imposed by the federal government. The federal minimum is $5.15 per hour, whereas in Washington State it will soon be $7.16. A proposal in Madison, Wisconsin , would raise it to $7.75. “Living wage” legislation in 110 local governments imposes wages as high as $10. Senator Kennedy is
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.