One theory of copyright is that it promotes the production and distribution of literary works. Well, that myth is completely shattered in chapter five of Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrine and David Levine. The chapter is pithy, thorough, dead on in its practical analysis, and deeply radical. It is the perfect illustration of why I
The professional laundry I use just informed me that their shirt-folding machine has broken, so they now must fold my shirts by hand. This of course means “an up-charge” - or so they say. How much? $0.35 per shirt. So I have to pay a higher price as a consumer because the laundry can’t maintain its equipment? So hear this manager talk, you would
It’s a fascinating list put together by Economics of Contempt. Perhaps it is biased but I note the number of free-market thinkers here, people with a supply-side bias who do not have the Austrian theory of the business cycle figured into their intellectual apparatus. At the same time, let’s say that you didn’t entirely understand that Fannie and
He published books on inventions with information that the guilds tried to suppress. He declined patents on his own inventions. He loved “pirated” editions of books. His Almanac was essentially the Google of its time. He opposed every attempt to close off information flows. Full treatment here
Let me just say a few words about this new Working Paper up on Mises.org. It is by Dominick Severance, a student just graduated from Christendom College. The title is Revisionist history on this topic was once a common part of anyone’s education. Now it seems that this subject is no longer discussed in any detail, and that is a tragedy because
Which has more power, the tax collectors or the courts? Consider: Sometimes when the IRS loses in court, it announces that it isn’t going to follow the court’s decision. That may sound like the height of hubris. But since the IRS operates nationwide and most courts have limited jurisdiction, the IRS can choose to keep fighting elsewhere, even if
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.
