Former National Football League star Walter Payton has been stricken by a rare liver disease and needs a transplant in order to live. Unfortunately, the demand for available organs far outstrips the supply, and several thousand Americans this year will die waiting for those life-saving organs. When Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act
A year ago July, I sent my girlfriend some flowers. I picked up the phone, called a florist, and, for about thirty dollars, she received one dozen roses. Seven months later, for Valentine’s Day, I called the same florist and again ordered one dozen roses for my girlfriend. This time, however, they would cost one hundred twenty dollars. I was
[Delivered at the Mises Institute conference, Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets, September 16, 1999, Toronto, Canada.] The word deflation is currently on the lips of many economists. Bank of Japan Governor Masaru Hayami has reiterated in parliament that the central bank will keep its ultra-easy monetary policy unchanged until the threat
The Free Market 17, no. 1 (January 1999) In what can only be termed as truly bizarre, an Alabama local of the steelworkers union demanded that Alabama Governor Fob James close the international port at Mobile to all steel imports. Besides the fact that it would be clearly a violation of the U.S. Constitution for the governor to grant the union’s
The Free Market 17, no. 2 (February 1999) The policy agenda of the Clinton administration is usually described as halting, pragmatic, and poll driven. But in its approach to the issue of medical insurance and the drive to socialize medical care, it has been systematic, principled, and highly strategic. The Clinton government is using the
The Free Market 17, no. 9 (August 1999) No New York City public institution better illustrates the rise and decline of the city than the subways. The subways were primarily built by private-sector entrepreneurs at the turn of the century. On Oct. 27, 1904, the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), the first subway line in the city, began operating
The Clinton administration wasn’t content with blowing up a pharmacy in the Sudan; now it wants to blow up hundreds of them on the web. The plan is to give the Food and Drug Administration massive new investigative powers to hamper online sales of prescription drugs. The proposed legislation would impose penalties of half a million dollars per
Protectionism, often refuted and seemingly abandoned, has returned, and with a vengeance. The Japanese, who bounced back from grievous losses in World War II to astound the world by producing innovative, high-quality products at low prices, are serving as the convenient butt of protectionist propaganda. Memories of wartime myths prove a heady
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.