Interventionism

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 21 July 2015.

Fourteen years ago, when Portugal decriminalized most illegal drugs, drug war proponents claimed the move would drive Portugal into chaos. Today, Portugal has the second-lowest death rate from illegal drugs in Europe with no sign of chaos on the horizon.

Like Argentina and Venezuela, Greece's economy is plagued not just by institutional problems, but by a pervasive anti-capitalism that continually cripples the ability of individual Greeks to build wealth and a solid economy.

Since the revolution, many acts of Congress under the Constitution have done much to undo the Spirit of 1776. Here are a few of the worst.

Much of Bolivia's alleged socialist miracle relies on the commodity boom, but there is a real laissez-faire element behind the boom, too. Bolivian President Evo Morales is allowing Bolivia's small-businesses and informal economies to truly thrive and grow.

Advocates for minimum wage mandates say they won't cause unemployment if done a little at a time. But if that's the case, why isn't Baltimore, with its myriad of wage laws, an engine of job growth?

It’s a great time to be studying entrepreneurship. Today as never before entrepreneurs are confronted with “grand challenges” both in the marketplace and society more broadly. And despite constant efforts to stifle their work, entrepreneurs rise to these challenges, thereby showing their vital role in solving some of our deepest economic and social problems. 

Congress and the First Lady teamed up to impose the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act on school children across the country, but news of unintended consequences abound.

Tom Woods’s book The Church and the Market revolutionized the economics debate among Catholics, and it explained how religion cannot replace economic science any more than it can replace physics. Understanding reality, and how to seek religious ends within it, depends on good science.

Believing his record on economic predictions to be impeccable, Paul Krugman has declared himself "Krugtron the Invincible." Unfortunately for him, a closer look at this record leaves quite a bit to be desired when it comes to accurately predicting the future.