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 Free Market 17, no. 11 (November 1999) Even when the market produces amazing new technology, it can become a basis for criticism. There are two main excuses used today to justify intervention in the technology market. The first argues that manufacturers build a planned obsolescence into their designs. The second argues that a path dependency
The Free Market 17, no. 12 (December 1999) The workaholic, or more precisely worry about him, is back. During the 1980s, just as the free market’s reputation was beginning to rebound, the guardians of the national psyche discovered “workaholism.” The victim of this disorder was defined as working compulsively, spending far too much time at his
The Free Market 17, no. 12 (December 1999) Austrian economists should revel in the story of Ukara, a small, Tanzanian island in Lake Victoria. John Reader, in his astoundingly detailed and fascinating work, Africa: A Biography of the Continent (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), presents among a wealth of other information that should be of genuine
The Free Market 17, no. 12 (December 1999) Thank goodness this bloody century, the era of communism, national socialism, fascism, and central planning-in short, the century of government worship-is coming to an end. May we use the occasion to re-pledge our allegiance to human freedom, which is the basis of prosperity and civilization itself, and
Myth Of The Voluntary State Mises Review 5, No. 2 (Summer 1999) POST-SOCIALIST POLITICAL ECONOMY: SELECTED ESSAYS James M. Buchanan Edward Elgar, 1997, ix + 285 pgs. Professor James Buchanan, the 1986 Nobel Laureate in Economics, has achieved fame through public choice economics, which he, together with Gordon Tullock, invented. According to this
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
The Brooklyn Museum of Art is suing the City of New York to forestall a threatened suspension of funds resulting from an art exhibit in which a painting of the Virgin Mary sports clumps of elephant dung. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani is offended. So am I, but for a different reason. Why are hardworking people being taxed to support a scatological
Two Faces of Forgiveness President Clinton’s pastor and spiritual adviser J. Philip Wogaman has shown great interest in economic theory and policy. A professor of Christian Social Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D.C., and pastor of the Foundry Methodist Church, his writings on economic systems display a relentless moral
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.