On the face of it, who can object to the Supreme Court’s decision that permits wine consumers to buy directly from out-of-state wineries? This is just the free market at work. The state laws that prohibited the practice were nothing but a legal leftover from prohibition days and a mercantilist privilege granted to politically powerful distributors
The bloom on the rose of war eventually fades, leaving only the thorns. By the time this takes place, most everyone has already begun the national task of averting the eyes from the thorns, meaning the awful reality, the dashed hopes, the expense, the lame, the limbless, the widows, the orphans, the death on all sides, and the resulting
Permit me to draw your attention to what strikes me as the most profound political paradox of our times. The US government is larger, more consolidated, more powerful, and more intrusive than it has ever been in its history – indeed our sweet land of liberty is now host to the most powerful leviathan state that has ever existed. Never before has a
Congress toyed with the idea of a tax holiday on gasoline as a way to drive the price down to address constituent complaints. But, as you might guess, they rejected it. Why, oh why, did Congress decline to give us a bit more liberty, aside from the obvious fact that they like the revenue and power? Well, we can’t go too much aside after all: they
When you think about the sufferings of the precapitalistic age, it helps to have a vivid example in mind. Think of teeth. In ancient Egypt, dentists drilled holes through the bone to drain abscessed teeth. No anesthesia. Later, people learned that pulling teeth was the best way to deal with this and other problems. No anesthesia. Dental drills
It’s hard to know which Bush policies – every day, another disaster – will most immortalize this administration. But on this day, in this hour, I’m going to suggest that his name should be forever mud for his catastrophic decision to nationalize airline security after 9-11. There is war, spending, and missed opportunities all around, but
I’m as happy as the next guy to see the latest polls showing that I, and the next guy, and the guy after him, loathe Bush and his policies. But then I’m also one of those who would tell a pollster that any and all presidents ought to be impeached immediately, even if there is no compelling reason other than to put the next inhabitant of the office
[ Originally published May 18, 2006. ] I’m beginning to think that the epithet “consumerism” is just another word for freedom in the marketplace. It’s true that the market is delivering goods, services, and technological advances by leaps, day after day. People claim that they are so inundated with techno advances that they don’t want any more.
Here is the introduction to the new edition of For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Mises Institute, 2006) There are many varieties of libertarianism alive in the world today, but Rothbardianism remains the center of its intellectual gravity, its primary muse and conscience, its strategic and moral core, and the focal point of debate even
People tell me that Saddam Hussein is a very bad man. Probably he is. OK, really he is. He is egregiously immoral and ghastly. Should he be put on trial? Can such a trial be fair? This is where it gets complicated. If all heads of state who commit violent acts were to be tried as criminals, we would live in a very different world. It would be a
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.
