I thought bashing great chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders went out of style about ten years ago, yet here is the New York Times today with a piece lamenting the not-very-newsworthy death of a 26-year-old independent bookstore, Micawber Books in Princeton, New Jersey. The piece struck me with the amount of space it devotes to the
This excerpt from an article on Americans abandoning U.S. automakers provides an idea of just how ignorant one would have to be to believe that “buying American” makes any sense: Justin Watson, a 25-year old laborer and student from Beaumont, Texas, says he is fiercely loyal to American cars. “My great-grandfather, grandfather and father fought
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, libertarian law professor Ilya Somin celebrates The Godfather for all the right reasons. Here also is the Mises Institute’s movie guide on the Godfather movies, and Robert Murphy on whether we should loathe or love the mafia . And of course Murray Rothbard was there first, with his Libertarian Forum review , and this
The post office likes to make believe that it’s a real business with ridiculous gimmicks like its “forever” stamp and talk about being “competitive” in the market. But that can’t change the fact that the post office is an outrageously inefficient government monopoly, which exists only because the law protects it from real competition or even the
There are things you can do to help mitigate the shortage of transplantable organs such as kidneys. For example, you can identify yourself as an organ donor on your drivers license. You can join LifeSharers . And if you’re really generous, you can give your organs away. But Congress could end the shortage of transplantable organs entirely right
Eminent domain threats, millions of taxpayer dollars, and tackiness are all reasons to oppose the forthcoming federal Flight 93 memorial. For the details, read my op-ed from a Pennsylvania newspaper near the
In case you missed it, yesterday’s New York Times offered a profile of “freegans” -- people who live as much as possible, and relatively well, off other people’s garbage, which they get for free by combing through dumpsters and the like. That’s fine, if it’s how you want to live, but the article gets really good when the freegans offer their
It’s easy to think of ways the federal government could be reduced right now, and a recent book from the Cato Institute catalogs many of them in the hopes that lawmakers will see the light. The question is, why would politicians ever reduce the power they’ve worked so hard to seize? The only reason would be because the people whose votes they need
Should you be allowed to put a “For Sale” sign on your own car? Most people would say yes, but some local governments say no — and the courts approve this because somehow “commercial speech” is deemed less worthy of protection than political speech. Never mind, of course, that political speech about issues typically involves advocating the use 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.