Mises Search

The Free Market 18, no. 11 (November 2000)   You’ve heard that government policies can cause unanticipated bad effects? This view is confirmed many times over when you consider the current forest-fire fiasco. Government is the cause of the fires that raged out of control across the West this summer, just as surely as if the Forest Service had

The Free Market 18, no. 12 (December 2000)   In October, the press began reporting Albert Gore’s startling catalog of lies. They were legion. How can a person tell so many falsehoods so often about so many things? One newspaper account theorized that it was a habit developed from growing up in a highly-political family. For a child in that

The Free Market 19, no. 2 (February 2001)   There is a class of pundits that defends public confidence in big government, and trashes those who celebrate its undoing. These pundits had a fit following this year’ s election that revealed the least flattering side of the US system of government. If we thought the process of making laws was ugly, few

The Free Market 19, no. 3 (March 2001)   A proper education reform would involve at least three steps. First, end all involvement in the issue by the federal government. Second, at the state level, end compulsory attendance laws that strike at the heart of individual and family freedom. Third, privatize the system so that users pay the going

The Free Market 19, no. 6 (June 2001)   While some taxes are worse than others, there is no good tax. All taxes distort production, depress economic growth, and punish producers and consumers. It’s also true that different kinds of taxes affect production and punish people in different ways.  You can even use taxes to manipulate social and

The Free Market 19, no. 7 (July 2001)   In 1957, a businessman and radio personality named Robert LeFevre (1911-1986) founded a very special institution in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In his private studies, he had discovered the libertarian intellectual tradition. He noted the dire need for an institution that would educate people from all walks

The Free Market 19, no. 8 (August 2001)   Widespread panic set in this summer when the party of King Simeon II won a majority in Bulgaria’s recent elections. There were ominous warnings about this being the first East European state to take a step toward restoring monarchical figures to power. So many people associate democracy with freedom and

The Free Market 19, no. 9 (September 2001)   One of many pastimes of government bureaucrats is forcing foreign banks to cough up tax information on US citizens. This is a disaster for the cause of privacy, the right of contract, and freedom itself. If the campaign, which has been going on for years, finally succeeds, it will mean the end of bank

The Free Market 19, no. 11 (November 2001)   We will never resort to a bailout, said the Bush administration concerning the financial failures of the Argentinian government. That was one week before the same administration arranged an $8 billion line of credit for the same government. Nobody believes it is going to do much good. By once again

The Free Market 19, no. 12 (December 2001)   The terrorist attack in September did immense damage to life and property, damage which the federal government has compounded with its wartime response, which has come at the expense of the freedom of the American people. The very merit of freedom itself has been called into question. If the terrorists