Volume 13, Number 1 (1997) War Follows Protection. Peace Follows Free Trade. As David Ricardo said, “If you want peace, starve the government.” Adam Smith believed that trade both refined the manners and improved the standard of living of a people. Throat cutting and xenophobia decline with the growth of internationalism. For those who love
Democratic governments, almost all of them, are normally run by career pols. They have ravenous appetites for wealth. They almost always have big plans to expand the government, which means they always want more money. (I remember Hillary Clinton’s recent book, What Happened . Here she spoke about her plans for a presidency and said she likes “to
Recently I attended a wake in Rego Park, Queens, a county which is unfortunately a part of New York City. It was the end of a wonderful kosher deli that was beloved by Jew and non-Jew alike: Ben’s Best. This terrific eatery might have died a natural death — many of its elderly patrons were moving to Florida and other less taxing climes than our
In her new book What Happened , Hillary Clinton explains why she lost the presidential election last year. She blames sexism. She blames Trump’s outrageous conduct. She blames Vice President Joe Biden. She blames Obama. She blames Trump’s “deplorable” supporters. She blames FBI Director James Comey and “those damn emails.” She blames the Russians.
The Free Market 23, no. 9 (September 2003) I t happens in every bear market and in every crash. Investors get it wrong. Then regulators get it wrong. They look for scapegoats and find the wrong ones. They whoop up a holy war in the popular press as markets are embraced by a persistent bear. They indict the wrong people. They’re like the
The Free Market 20, no. 1 (January 2002) And you thought the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was only for fat cats! The hired help on the Potomac, many of whom reluctantly approved a piddly little tax cut this summer, are going to give a new meaning, over the next few years, to that wonderful principle of fiscal skullduggery and political
The Free Market 20, no. 3 (March 2002) On May Day 1971, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, later known as Amtrak, took over a group of overregulated bankrupt private railroads. Officials of Amtrak, which is a blending of the words American and track, announced that the government would make money on these bankrupt railroads. The public
Social Security was not just about the provision of publicly funded old-age pensions in the name of social insurance. It was designed as a tool of macroeconomic policy, a social arm of central planning passed in age of boundless faith in the power of the state. As such, the program was steeped in economic fallacy and became an integral part of the
The Republicans failed on health care, but now they are offering a new plan for tax and spending cuts, with a promise of smaller government. But the GOP, with few exceptions, seems about as creditable as the Democrats and their flawed, small-business killer, Obamacare. Many of the Democrats are people who subscribe to a socialism without
History is something one can try to escape, but sometimes you can’t as millions of train riders find out every day. They can’t escape Penn Station falling apart along with Amtrak, New York City commuter railroads, and the New York City subways. They all have the same problem: Every day they are reminded of the sordid history of government
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.