Yuri N. Maltsev of the International Center for Development Policy and a former Gorbachev reform team advisor, describes the miserable standard of living in the Soviet Union and explains how the economy could be fully privatized. But, his short-term outlook is extremely pessimistic. Presented by the Mises Institute at the Washington Court Hotel in
Kęstutis Baltramatis, chief privatization economist of the Lithuanian Council of Ministers, speaks of Lithuania’s plan to completely privatize industry and dramatically cut the size of the public sector. Especially notable is his revelation that Lithuania plans to welcome foreign entrepreneurs with no restrictions. Includes an introduction by Lew
The Free Market 14, no. 8 (August 1996) “We Russians are doomed to teach mankind,” wrote philosopher Grigory Chaadayev in 1848, “some awful lesson.” The lesson turns out to be more than proving socialism’s brutality and futility. It is also about the unlikelihood that elections alone will resolve a deep social and economic crisis. After the
Fidel Castro is dead, and the mainstream media in the US and elsewhere are beside themselves with grief over their fallen hero. If you are not sickened by the disease of Castrophilia, it is obvious that there is nothing good to say about this mass murderer, except that he was lucky enough to live into his 90s. I’ve been to Cuba several times.
The Free Market 12, no. 7 (July 1994) Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s return to Russia has engendered more than the usual amount of scaremongering. The author, we are told, is a Pan-Slavic nationalistic and religious fanatic whose views are outdated and irrelevant. Yet Solzhenitsyn used his first speech and press conference in Russia to promote two
President Bill Clinton went to Russia, a country whose economy is still crippled by massive state ownership and control, where private property is not secure, contracts are not enforced, and enterprise is free in name only. What did he say? He opened his speech with praise for Stalin’s military victories, which occurred in the midst of the Gulag,
Russia’s ruling elite finds incessant armed conflicts necessary for its own survival. Having claimed that the intervention in Chechnya is meant to “punish terrorism” and defend Russians from Chechen terrorist bombings, Yeltsin’s government is unleashing another genocidal war against Chechnya and other Muslim parts of Russia. This perfectly
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.