Most of the commentary on the ongoing propaganda campaign against Wal-Mart ignores what is probably the most important aspect of it: It is primarily a labor union-inspired campaign against Wal-Mart employees , as well as the company in general. This is the essential truth of all union organizing campaigns. Historically, all of the violence, libel,
The single most important tax reform of the 1980s was the indexation of the federal income tax to inflation and the reduction of the number of federal income tax brackets from fifteen to three. Prior to that, ordinary middle class workers were pushed up into higher and higher tax brackets by simply receiving cost-of-living pay increases. The
Wal-Mart-hating interventionists are running out of reasons to hate Wal-Mart. Incapable of making any kind of coherent argument that America’s biggest retailer is harmful to consumers or workers, they are now rewriting American business history — including the history of antitrust regulation — to vent their hatred of an institution that has done
One of the oldest myths about capitalism is the notion that factories that offer the poor higher wages to lure them off the streets (and away from lives of begging, stealing, prostitution, or worse) or away fom back-breaking farm labor somehow impoverishes and exploits them. They are said to work in “sweatshops” for “subsistence wages.” That was
The Free Market 24, no. 2 (February 2006) Most of the commentary on the ongoing propaganda campaign against Wal- Mart ignores what is probably the most important aspect of it: It is primarily a labor-union-inspired campaign against Wal-Mart employees, as well as the company in general. This is the essential truth of all union organizing
The Free Market 24, no. 6 (June 2006) The single most important tax reform of the 1980s was the indexation of the federal income tax to inflation and the reduction of the number of federal income tax brackets from fifteen to three. Prior to that, ordinary middle class workers were pushed up into higher and higher tax brackets by simply receiving
If the idea of prices and wages is that they should clear the market, leaving neither shortages or surpluses, consider that Wal-Mart might be overpaying. According to ChicagoBusiness.com : “The new Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location opening Friday in suburban Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions, the highest for any
At Thanksgiving, Americans recall their blessings around bountiful meals, with imagery going back to Pilgrim days, especially Plymouth Colony’s 1623 Thanksgiving. But little attention is paid to what allows that bounty to be created — capitalism — though Jamestown and Plymouth both illustrate that lesson. Reflections restricted to our bounty
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.