Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America Richard K. Vedder Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 2019, 400 + xiv pp. Timothy Terrell (terrelltd@wofford.edu) is T.B. Stackhouse Professor of Economics at Wofford College and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute. Higher education in the United States is facing a reckoning, and none too
In over twenty-five years of teaching undergraduate students, I have heard the same refrain countless times: free markets have many problems that government has to step in to solve. Indeed, students expect government to “step in” so much that markets occupy a peripheral role in their idealized economic system. Even students with an ideological
After a hiatus of about 10 years, the Mises Institute is resuming publication of the Journal of Libertarian Studies , with volume 23 scheduled to appear before the end of the year. This peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal, with David Gordon as editor, will complement the economics-focused Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics . The
The Free Market 14, no. 6 (June 1996) Government bureaucrats look out for their own kind. Entrepreneur John Shanahan, the man behind “Hooked on Phonics,” found that out the hard way when he developed a program that taught his son how to read after the California public schools could not. Literacy rates in the United States have plunged since
The Free Market 15, no. 10 (October 1997) Among the tax discussions on Capitol Hill this year are the proposed changes in the 80-year-old inheritance tax. Part of the Republican tax plan calls for an increase in the estate tax exemption from $600,000 to $1,000,000, with considerably larger exemptions for farmers and other small business owners.
The Free Market 16, no. 4 (April 1998) Medical researchers are often so convinced of the overriding social importance of their work that they won’t let something as petty as market valuations get in the way of their agenda. That’s why they haven’t missed many opportunities at securing tax-funded grants and subsidies, and they’re about to score
The Free Market 17, no. 11 (November 1999) Even when the market produces amazing new technology, it can become a basis for criticism. There are two main excuses used today to justify intervention in the technology market. The first argues that manufacturers build a planned obsolescence into their designs. The second argues that a path dependency
The Free Market 18, no. 3 (March 2000) Statism has so permeated our culture that even the games we play reflect the popular belief in omnipotent government. For example, one of the most successful computer games of all time is the SimCity series, which requires the player to plan a city in exhaustive detail from uninhabited terrain. Over five
The Free Market 18, no. 5 (May 2000) The technology is Now Available that would allow your grocery store to track the movements of customers across the store using the distinct infrared signature of each individual. By linking the data with information at the checkout counter, the purchasing habits and meanderings of each person could be
In Abbeville County, South Carolina, a fellow named Arthur Bixby barricaded himself in his house and unloaded on the cops who were trying to serve a warrant on him. The standoff is now over. Bixby is hospitalized in critical condition, while his son and wife are in custody , and two officers are dead. How did this all begin? The SC Dept. of
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.
