[This article is excerpted from The Privatization of Roads and Highways .] Question: Suppose the state is taken out of the equation; let’s presume private road owners can write and enforce the rules of the road. As it is in their best interest to ensure safety, the roads will be used more and therefore become more profitable. Given that this is
[ The Libertarian Forum , June/July 1972] Supposed exponents of free trade, like YAF, conservative clubs, the Birch Society, and other right-wing groups have long been actively opposing the importation of Polish hams. We shall prove that whatever principles such actions could be based upon, they are not the principles of the free-market
[ The Libertarian Forum , June/July 1972] More phony-white-liberal crocodile tears have been shed over the issue of academic freedom than perhaps over any other. More academics have waxed more eloquent over it than over perhaps any other topic receiving their tender attention. In the eyes of some, it has been equated with the very basis of Western
[ Austrian Economics Newsletter , Fall 1993] Professor Gary S. Becker, the winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, is like Professor Moriarty of Sherlock Holmes fame. Holmes said of Moriarty, “Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts — forgery cases, robberies, murders — I have felt the presence of this force.” In like
[This article is a response to Paul Baer et al., “Greenhouse Development Rights: A Proposal for a Fair Global Climate Treaty,” Ethics, Place & Environment , volume 12, issue 3 (2009).] There are not one but rather two schools of thought on the environment and its challenges. For want of better nomenclature, I shall characterize them as the
Previously, I, Walter Block, published an article on the use of the word “capitalism.” I defended the employment of this nomenclature in the promotion of libertarianism, criticizing the formation of a group , lead by my old and good friend, Sheldon Richman, called Libertarians Against Capitalism. I am now coauthoring this reply to Sheldon with
[Excerpted from Defending the Undefendable ] The miser has never recovered from Charles Dickens’s attack on him in A Christmas Carol . Although the miser had been sternly criticized before Dickens, the depiction of Ebenezer Scrooge has become definitive and has passed into the folklore of our time. Indeed, the attitude pervades even in freshman
[Excerpted from Defending the Undefendable . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download .] “Excellent idea, Winslow. The rich too must eat in a famine. Along with staples we’ll store up ten thousand tons of gourmet foods.” “Kill the speculators!” is a cry made during every famine that has ever existed.
[Excerpted from Defending the Undefendable . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download .] The scene is familiar from hundreds of movies featuring labor themes: the young eager worker comes to the factory for the first time, determined to be a productive worker. In his enthusiasm, he happily produces more
[Day 22 of Robert Wenzel’s 30-day reading list that will lead you to become a knowledgeable libertarian, this article is excerpted from Defending the Undefendable . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download .] “Let’s see, I have a nice three-room apartment on the upper West Side No, no Madam, not 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.
