Mises Search

On June 28, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission issued a formal “administrative complaint” to block the proposed merger between premium grocers Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Market. They claim that it would reduce competition in the “premium natural and organic supermarkets” sector, suggesting further that “if the transaction goes forward Whole

  Legislation has outlawed “child labor” in the United States in various manifestations for decades, yet child labor persists for several reasons and through many different channels. While children no longer work in factories or in other occupations, they still work in family businesses (on farms, in family restaurants, etc.), and less obvious

  People in the market can compete on many different margins. They can compete by offering higher productivity, or they can compete by offering better products. Perhaps most importantly, people can compete by offering lower prices. In the case of laborers, this often means offering their services at a lower wage. Anyone who has taken an

Suppose that you want to destroy a city. Should you bomb it, or would it be sufficient just to impose rent control? It’s a bracing question at first, but some economists have argued that the two are roughly equivalent. When the price of rent is held below the market-clearing level, shortages emerge and the housing stock rapidly deteriorates. Those

It seems like the news is just a never-ending catalog of newer and better ways in which the political class is destroying the world. The US government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up firms that should be liquidated so that the capital they are tying up can be better used elsewhere, new restrictions on credit cards will hurt

[ The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty by Alvaro Vargas Llosa • Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute • 2006.] Ironically, anticapitalist crusader and left-wing icon Che Guevara has turned into a brand name revered by people the world around, which brought me to Alvaro Vargas Llosa’s The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty .

  How do our choices of amusements affect our behavior and, therefore, society? Whenever newer, more violent video games are released, some commentators inevitably call for government regulation because of studies linking video games and violence. This became an issue at the beginning of this year when some officials argued for federal labeling

[An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Floy Lilley, is available for download.]   Henry Hazlitt once said that good ideas have to be relearned every generation. Among the intellectuals of our time, capitalism is wildly unpopular. This in spite of the fact that it is the only social system that has permitted prosperity and flourishing. Why

  Can the monetary system regulate itself, or does it require oversight by government regulators? According to Lawrence H. White, who gave a lecture entitled “Can the Monetary System Regulate Itself?” at Rhodes College this past March the answer to the first question is “yes” and the answer to the second question is “no.” [1] According to

“If you want to help poor people, restricting their options and opportunities is not the answer.” Why are rich people rich while poor people are poor? Is it because governments fail to protect the poor with stringent standards on wages and workplace safety, or is it because of something else? In spite of the hue and cry of international