Perhaps it’s inevitable that a good magazine sooner or later really blows it on a particular issue. A relatively recent and shocking column entitled “ Will History Repeat Itself? “ in the August 6 issue of Forbes is a good example. Written by Stephen Manes, a close watcher of the software industry, the purpose of the article is to briefly
A recent trip to Santa Monica, California, provided me with a clear explanation of why Californians, despite all their wealth, talent, and resourcefulness, have the energy supply system of a Third World country. Like so many tiny Latin American dictatorships, or the outer provinces of India, Californians can no longer rely on a steady supply of
America’s emergency room physicians met recently for their annual convention and emerged with their well-scrubbed hands extended and begging for government handouts. Terrorism, they say, means that taxpayers will have to hand over additional billions of dollars to the emergency rooms of America’s hospitals. Additional tax dollars would not be
After a federal district judge recently ordered the prohibition of all new oil drilling along the California coast, an anti-drilling spokesperson declared the ruling “a victory for the California coast.” This is an interesting, if terribly confusing, notion. There was no fight between the California coast and anyone, not even between the coast and
Waiting To Inhale . By Alan Bock. (Seven Locks Press, 2000, 286 pages) $18.95. Alan Bock, senior editorial writer for the Orange County Register , knows marijuana. Bock has covered California’s medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215, since the movement began in 1996. His book, Waiting to Inhale , gives its readers a smoking inside look at
The Microsoft trials remind us that the fear of industrial concentration is the last refuge of socialist theory. The claim is that capitalism ultimately fails because all (or most, or at least some) industries naturally congeal into monopolies in a free market. It follows that government must regulate industries to bring about “competition.” It
Sometimes we notice anomalies in our relatively well functioning economic system, and we wonder how they could exist. For instance, how is it possible that fully 25% of all airline flights were either delayed or canceled last year? How can California be having electricity shortages and rolling blackouts when their electricity market was
It cannot even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime. ~ Albert Jay Nock Last October, James Turner rented a car from Acme Rent-a-Car in New Haven, Connecticut. Acme installs a global positioning system (GPS) in its cars so it can find stolen cars and charge
The Bush administration has announced its support for “sky marshals” on commercial aircraft, with the hope that an armed federal agent will deter future hijackings. On the downside, however, the administration opposes the easiest route of simply permitting the airlines to arm themselves and thereby take responsibility for their own security.
There was a time when the word reform described a process of renewal, of change, and of taking new steps towards correcting a problem. With the rise of campaign finance reform, it is clear that this is no longer the case. A linguistic transformation has occurred, for reform is now an inside-the-Beltway buzzword that denotes the perpetuation of
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.