Mises Search

(Summer 1998)   An Interview With Randall G. Holcombe Randall G. Holcombe is DeVoe Moore professor of economics at Florida State University and an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. He is author of eight book including Public Finance and the Political Process  (1983), An Economic Analysis of Democracy (1985),

The Free Market 10, no. 6 (June 1992)   Special interests have long used the democratic political process to produce legislation for their own private benefit, and the U.S. Constitution contains flaws that make this easier. One attempt to remedy these flaws was the Confederate Constitution.  The Confederate Constitutional Convention opened in

In response to my article, “Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable” (2004), Walter Block (2005) offers a detailed refutation of my argument on the inevitability of government. I want to respond to some of what Block said because I think that in his zest to show where he thinks I have erred, he has overlooked the larger issue of how one might

The Federal Reserve has just released a survey indicating that income and wealth inequality has been growing in the United States since 2007. Meanwhile, President Obama has called for government action to reduce inequality. So, it is worth a remark that the growth in inequality reported by the Fed pretty much coincides with the Obama presidency.

Reflecting on the Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to rescind protection of the Washington Redskins’ name, whether some people view a trademark as offensive should not be a criterion for determining whether it should be protected. If a large number of people are offended by a trademark, then it will be a liability rather than an asset to

I don’t know if you are as popular with the political insiders as I am, but already today I have received emails from Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In fact, I’ve received more than a dozen emails today alone from either the Democratic Party, Democrats involved in election campaigns, or Democratic interest groups. The

Ralph Nader argues in his new book, Unstoppable , that the left and right are coming together in their opposition of corporatism: those government policies that favor the economically powerful over the general public interest.  This convergence of the left and right presents an opportunity for people to drop their political labels and unite to

Governments often misuse language to build emotional and patriotic support for their policies. This Orwellian use of language is clearly evident in the way that US government policy uses the words “war” and “peace.” Everyone is well aware of the US military invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Initiated during the Bush administration and continued

The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.7% at the end of 2013 to 6.1% in August 2014 . That decline is primarily the result of the expiration of long-term unemployment benefits. Unemployment compensation usually expires at the end of 26 weeks of unemployment, but during the last recession Congress extended that period, and many states paid

President Obama has threatened to impose costs on Russia for their intervention in Ukraine, but so far, his involvement has been high on rhetoric but low on action. Here’s a proposal that ought to hit Russia where it hurts: impose a food embargo on them. Americans and Europeans of a certain age can remember the costs they felt due to the OPEC oil