Mises Search

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

There I stood at the pharmacy counter, with a head cold, sniffing away, and begging for some product that contains pseudoephedrine , which works like a magic nose unclogger. The stuff you can get off the shelf now contains the similar-sounding drug called phenylephrine , but it might as well be a placebo. It just doesn’t work, and most everyone

See if you can spot anything wrong with the following claim, a version of which seems to appear in a book, magazine, or newspaper every few weeks for as long as I’ve been reading public commentary on economic matters: The dominant idea guiding economic policy in the United States and much of the globe has been that the market is unfailingly wise.

Let’s say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can’t hire — a typical teenager, or even a preteen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to that of most people over the age of 30. From the point of view of online

Once again, for the umpteenth time this month, I arrive at work soaking wet. Just getting from the car to the front door of the Mises Institute is like going through the rinse cycle — and umbrellas just aren’t my thing. What’s striking is how this weather pattern follows a year of dire warnings from government officials about the deadly drought

It’s civic baseball season again, that time of the year when we are reminded that everything we believe about how society works is wrong, at least in this area if not in all areas. Parents strapped for cash — how long-suffering is the middle class — throw down hundreds of dollars for equipment and uniforms and batting gloves and shoes and lessons,

Let’s pull this sentence out of the civic pieties of our time and see what’s wrong with it: “We should all volunteer our time in charitable causes and give back to the community in a labor of love.” We can’t argue with the instruction here, or the sentiment behind it. There is nothing wrong with giving and sacrifice. My argument is with the choice

The phrase “Merchants of Death” takes center stage in the movie Iron Man , which is a spectacular exposé of a subject that dominates the American economic landscape but about which Americans have very little knowledge. The phrase and the movie deal with the odd juxtaposition of capitalism and war as found in the weapons industry. Here we have

We all have strange and contradictory wishes concerning what prices should be. We are outraged at what is happening to the price of gas and food. We don’t think they should go up. In real terms, we want them to fall, and they have fallen in the last decade and a half. That’s a good thing, right? That’s how the world should work. But housing? Now,

The following attempts to explain the most important idea in the history of social analysis. The notion (actually, it’s a description of reality that is all around us but rarely noticed) has been around for centuries. It was first observed by ancients. It was first described with rigor by late-medieval monks working in Spain. It was given