Our mentor has always been Hippocrates, not Adam Smith —President of a County Medical Society at an AMA meeting quoted in the February 16, 1981 issue of the New York Times . This weekend (June 11-13, 2004), the American Medical Association (AMA) will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its Council on Medical Education. The medical establishment
Interventionism cannot be considered as an economic system destined to stay. It is a method for the transformation of capitalism into socialism by a series of successive steps— Ludwig von Mises, “ Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism ,” April 18, 1950. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good — Hillary Rodham
We are advised that America is experiencing an “Obesity Epidemic”, as if it is some sort of contagious disease. Government “officials” tell us that Americans are becoming obese at an alarming rate; they appear on network news programs warning of the health consequences of being overweight. Politicians talk about taxing fattening foods to stop us
Two years ago I was on a faculty committee to choose the one book that incoming freshman would be asked to read and discuss in discussion groups during freshman orientation. It was the school of business’s turn to choose the book, so I thought it would be valuable, for once, for the freshman to read a book that was not the latest popular left-wing
Loni Wells is desperately ill. The 20-year-old Canadian is among the nearly 3,000 Canadians who require a kidney transplant each year. Suffering from a rare kidney disease called Focal Membrano Proliferative Glomerionephritis (MPGN), Loni required 8 ½ hours of dialysis every day after her kidney’s failed completely in February 2000, and later
There are roughly 35 million cattle slaughtered each year in the United States. This means that, in 2003, one in 35 million U.S. cattle were confirmed to have mad cow disease. Infected cattle comprised three millionths of one percent of all cattle, or 0.000003%. So why the mad cow scare? In one sense, the scare is legitimate. It reflects an
Last year, the governor of Alabama proposed and then overwhelmingly lost a bitter referendum to increase taxes and boost revenue. Voters rightly saw the campaign as a slick attempt to expand the public sector’s power, prestige, and wealth transfers by increasing the degree of legal plunder in Alabama’s tax system. It spoke highly of the voters in
Obesity may be an individual problem. It may be a problem that afflicts many individuals. Or maybe it is not a problem at all, since it is perfectly consistent with the idea of freedom that people are entitled to eat well, get fat, and die young. But one thing we can know for sure: obesity is not a social problem in the sense that this phrase is
Last month, my wife decided to get flu shot for our children, but when she saw the long lines that stretched around whole city blocks, she decided that even if a flu shot were important, nothing could justify subjecting young children to waiting for hours. We may try later – or we may not try at all and just hope we remain healthy this winter.
I have a friend serving time in the federal prison camp near Cumberland, Maryland, and I visit him whenever possible. (Like many other federal prisoners, he should not be incarcerated at all, but that is material for another story at another time.) During my last visit, we were discussing prison medical care, or the lack thereof. “Bill,” he said,
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.