The Littleton massacre showed the local police and SWAT team to be bumbling fools who were far more concerned about their own safety than that of the students or citizens. Actually, this is not just a single case but a systemic problem in all government law enforcement. In his new book, To Serve and Protect , Bruce Benson demonstrates that the
The Supreme Court has declined to put the antitrust case against Microsoft on fast track, decreasing the chances that the lower court and the antitrust division of the Justice Department will succeed in their efforts to break the company into two parts. To understand why this is a victory for consumers, consider a case 50 years ago when the
The government tells you that your taxes are being cut. What you may not have heard is that you may soon be drafted into an entirely separate tax system that receives very little public attention outside publications for tax accountants. The name of the second tier of tax is the AMT, the alternative minimum tax. If you work too hard, are too
I was making my first airplane trip after the September 11 attack, and boy was I afraid. I was headed right up through Terrorist Alley—from Montgomery, Alabama, through Memphis, Tennessee, to St. Louis, Missouri, and back again. Old Bin Laden himself could not have designed such a daredevil adventure. The first thing you notice about the new and
As we await the release of George Lucas’s second Star Wars prequel, The Attack of the Clones, speculation builds on whether Lucas can return to the glory of the original Star Wars trilogy. While critics attacked Lucas for his leading-boy character, his young-girl queen, and his politically incorrect characters (Jar Jar Binks and the admiral with
Economists of an Austrian bent just can’t take off their analytical spectacles, even when undertaking simple life activities like driving from here to there. Fortunately, this unusual way of looking at events and institutions yields fascinating results, as with a recent commute that nicely illustrated the universal truth that governments cause
A couple of weeks before Katrina, I had purchased a selection of several dozen bromeliads from the estate of the recently deceased past president of the American Bromeliad Association and moved them from the back yard of her house on Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans to Auburn, Alabama. At the time my biggest fear was that the
John Maynard Keynes often employed flowery language like “animal spirits” and “liquidity trap” to describe things he did not understand. He was, after all, more of a bureaucrat than an economist. In fact, he would best be described as an anti-economist because he eschewed things like supply and demand and held the opinion that government could run
Hollywood ain’t what it used to be. For the most part — and with known exceptions — the quality and content of today’s movies have plummeted when compared to the Golden Age. With the movies’ parade of sex and violence, they’re an easy target for cultural critics to say capitalism inflicts grave damage on the culture. Let’s take another look. It
The Free Market 17, no. 9 (September 1999) The Mississippi River Basin is the largest river basin in the world, and stretches from New York to Idaho and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. In the course of American history, the river often flooded, but not until 1927 had so many people been killed and left homeless and never had such a large land
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.