Sometimes 2.0 is just much better than 1.0, and here we see the big problem with intellectual-property protection.” The 2010 Disney animated feature Tangled tells the story of Rapunzel in a version much better than the original. The original had only one gimmick — the hair of the girl in the tower that the evil pretend mother and also the lover
A really cool thing is happening in Germany. After decades of strict laws regulating when stores can open and close ( Ladenschlussgesetz ), the laws are progressively liberalizing. Since 2006, the decision has been left to the individual states. Whereas commercial establishments once could not open their doors before 6 a.m. or keep them open past
Last week, this office had to send a fax, and the receiving number was the same for fax and voice lines. Of course that trick never really worked well in the 1980s, and it doesn’t work well today. The fax didn’t get there, and I had to go through the error logs to figure out why, and then try again. That meant hunkering down, again, over a machine
If you are looking for an archetype of disgusting protectionism — benefiting special interests, pillaging consumers, and impoverishing foreigners — the case of the catfish gets my vote. After communism vanished in Vietnam in the 1990s, entrepreneurs started exporting its catfish. The stuff was so good that it threatened US producers. So in 2003,
Housing prices hitting 2002 levels, unemployment still at 9 percent, private-sector job growth flat, and retail sales still struggling: these are headlines that few expected three years ago. The prevailing theory in Washington was that the recession was somehow precipitated (and therefore vaguely caused) by the crash in housing prices, and many
The nice folks at the local McDonald’s know me well, but even they were puzzled when I snapped a dozen images of their newly restored interior, which is absolutely beautiful. Like most fast-food places, the management is used to customers but still a bit surprised by dedicated fans like me. I feel vindicated by recent data on this company’s hiring
The modern state was born and built with the idea that it would bring material progress to the world. How things have changed! Now the same state works to reverse progress in every possible way and even brag about the glorious things it is doing to make our lives more miserable. It even has the chutzpah to tout that it alone can beat back our
People can be downright nasty to store clerks and stores. It’s their right: a feature of the market is that you don’t have to trade with anyone in particular. And yet, it still troubles me when people are so dismissive of attempts at entrepreneurship. Why not refrain from buying and walk away? Why hurl invective or behave in a rude way? In the
One morning I was reading about how in the past many thousands of people died from scurvy, and solely because travelers on the high seas had such limited access to fruit and vitamin C. Scurvy was documented in the ancient world, and, in the 300 years after 1500, may have killed as many as 2 million sailors. The fear of scurvy has been one of
Online commerce will soon be 10 percent of all retail, and it is growing at an exponential rate. We click and pay, and, if it’s not a digital good, the good arrives at our home a few days later. Remember “allow six to eight weeks for delivery?” That’s gone. Everything comes fast. And if it isn’t in stock, we are notified. When it is shipped, we
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.
