In their recently published paper, “The Curley Effect: The Economics of Shaping the Electorate” (Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Vol. 21(1), April 2005, pp. 1-19), Harvard economists Glaeser and Shleifer argue that democratic leaders can mix incendiary rhetoric and the redistributive powers of the state to encourage political
COMMON PROPERTY IN ANARCHO-CAPITALISM by Randall G. Holcombe. Speculation on the nature of anarcho-capitalism has typically proceeded under the assumption that all property in anarcho-capitalism would be privately owned... IS LOOKISM UNJUST?: THE ETHICS OF AESTHETICS AND PUBLIC POLICY IMPLICATIONS by Louis Tietje and Steven Cresap. Lookism is
Despite all of the public wailing for the desperate state of the poor left behind in New Orleans, to say nothing of all the low-wage workers who recently lost their employers down along the Bayou, the White House announced today that it will apply Davis-Bacon workplace rules to federally-funded reconstruction work in New Orleans. Although the
The AP is reporting that the US saving rate was negative for all of 2005, something that hasn’t happened for 70 years: The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before _ in 1932 and 1933 _ two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs. With
On the day that representatives from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems appear before a Congressional hearing for complying with the Chinese government’s rules in order to gain a foothold there, I read that Wal-Mart is being ordered by Massachusetts bureaucrats to sell a controversial abortifacient known as the “morning after” pill. In
A role for government is to insure against every possible risk that markets do not cover, says Harvard Business Professor David Moss : ...one of the underpinnings of our living standards is government’s willingness to reduce risks by being society’s insurer of last resort. This is because a notable flaw of the free-market system is the inability
“A breath in favour of the law, was sufficient to ruin any man. It was considered as a badge of toryism. A clergyman was not thought orthodox in the pulpit, unless against the law: a physician was not capable of administering medicine, unless his principles were right in this respect: a lawyer could have got no practice, without at least
An anonymous developer wants to build on the site of a small, ocean-side, mobile home town in Palm Beach County, Florida, so he offers each resident a million dollars for his home . The identity of the bidder has not been disclosed by the residents who serve on the park’s board. Ken Doyle, president of the corporation that owns the town’s 43
I recently heard from Jason McBride, who was the subject of my last Mises.org article, “The Right to Set Your Own Price” . McBride, a gas station owner from Aliceville, Alabama, was arrested for violating Alabama’s “anti-gouging” law on the day that Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. Jason told me that there was more to the story than
I am finding much in the news today discouraging and even disparaging the idea of personal responsibility and self ownership. Here are but three examples: First, if you have a fat kid, or if you are a fat kid, it is not your fault. The blame lies with television advertising that encourages unhealthy eating choices. A report issued yesterday by the
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.
