One of the greatest tragedies of intellectual property law is how it generates intellectual confusion among successful businesspeople. Many are under the impression, even when it is not true, that they owe their wealth to copyrights, trademarks, and patents and not necessarily to their business savvy. For this reason, they defend intellectual
Lots of people get interested in political ideas through political campaigns. Maybe this is because politics forces you to decide who you are and what you believe. I can vaguely recall when I was very young, perhaps 7 years old, that I discovered that my best friend’s family considered themselves Democratic whereas I was pretty sure that my family
It is inherently implausible, if you think about it, that the state could be an effective administrator of justice, for which there is a supply and demand like any other good. Shortages, inefficiencies, arbitrariness, and high costs will be main features of such a system. And because we are dealing here with the meting out of coercion, we can add
It was Columbine-plus at Virginia Tech ( NYT story ), as the police proved themselves to be totally useless or worse. They interviewed suspects, secured the perimeter, ordered everyone not to move, and meanwhile and for two hours, apparently, the killer roamed free and started his rampage against forcibly unarmed students unguarded by forcibly
It’s one thing for a firm to guard its own secrets, and enforce those rules with internal sanctions. But government regulations on insider trading is criminalizing knowledge as such, insofar as it is not in a press release, an notion which wars against the very idea of entrepreneurship. Such thoughts arise in connection with the news that 13 top
This morning, the New York Times headlines a scoop on how the Justice Department has shifted its energy from prosecuting race-oriented civil rights cases to religious-oriented civil rights case. I was prepared to think: here we go again with unjust laws being used to privilege groups based on their political affiliations. The story seemed to be a
A new survey, reported by the Telegraph , shows that nearly every teen on the planet is a music pirate, and the reality is slowing dawning on recording company execs that they need to find a way to serve the consumer rather than depend the government to protect their state-enforced
I saw two movies this week, each anti-government in its own way: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and the Simpsons. The Harry Potter movie was more sophisticated and provided a wonderful look at the nature of bureaucracy, with the Ministry of Magic, driven by the usual fear and ignorance, taking over Hogwarts and wrecking the place with
Declan McCullagh writes of the growing sense that Google will become the target of antitrust intervention. For the primer on why such attacks are unnecessary and destructive, see Armentano’s little book on antitrust
My article here elicited more correspondence than any in memory. Many people are just shocked at the idea that IP is contrary to market economics. The idea strikes people as obviously nuts and yet once people start thinking about it, wondering why precisely they support IP, it becomes more difficult because the rationales don’t actually hold up
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.