Tag Archives: 6b) Mises.org

The day after America celebrated its independence and its founding principles of self-governance and liberty, across the pond, Britain paid tribute to its values of collectivism and statism by commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Health Service (NHS). Children’s choirs sang “Happy Birthday” at a thanksgiving church service celebrating the NHS at Westminster Abbey. In attendance were the prime minister and the opposition leader, among others....

Although they professed to support "states' rights," many proslavery activists wanted a stronger federal government that could force slavery on the western territories and deny local sovereignty to territorial residents.  Original Article: "When Slave Owners Chose Federal Power over Local Sovereignty" [embedded content]...

On July 30, Yellow, one of the oldest and largest trucking businesses in the United States, ceased operations and moved to declare bankruptcy. According to reports, the final nail in the coffin of the ninety-nine-year-old business was a labor dispute with the Teamsters Union. Yellow’s executives also deserve some blame, however. The trucking networks acquired in the 2000s and 2010s were poorly managed, delaying their integration. That said, when the company finally...

Economic exchange stands as the defining essence of any economy, epitomizing the intricate web of interconnected transactions that shape its very existence. In essence, an economy derives its essence from the culmination of individual exchanges. However, the profound impact of the crucial distinction between voluntary choice and coercion often goes unnoticed by many outside the realm of economic study. In this article, we delve deeper into the dynamics of economic...

The state is, first and foremost, an institution whose overarching goal is the forcible subjugation of all the people who inhabit a given territory. However, what makes the state different from other coercive entities, such as organized crime groups, is that it enjoys some form of popular legitimacy. In other words, in addition to enslaving its inhabitants physically, it needs to secure their mental servitude as well. Many forms of such servitude have been tested by...

Words matter and definitions often become imprecise and “slippery.” There is a natural evolution of language wherein words gradually change over time, but often a key meaning gets lost and there no longer remains a single word to describe a concept. This has been the case with the common word “inflation.” Over the last few years, I have kept a list of quotes about the accurate definition of inflation (and I am always looking for more quotes). What inspired this list...

Whether political elites promote outright socialism or interventionism, thanks to the reality of economic calculation, they are advocating a failed economy. Original Article: "Why Mises’s Theory of Economic Calculation Still Is Relevant Today" [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

n discussing the recent boycott of Target, University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers recently told MSNBC: [If] Target caves into this, then it says that the moment you threaten the employees of even a very large corporation, you get to control its policies. This is economic terrorism, literally terrorism, creating fear among the workers and forcing the corporations to sell the things you want, not sell the things you don’t. Professor Wolfers is wrong...

Michael talks with Tom Woods about RFK, Jr., whether the elites are evil or just incompetent, and the secret of Tom's success. Out of the Woods? Video of Out of the Woods? [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

Why do individuals pay higher prices for some goods than others? The common reply references laws of supply and demand, but what are these laws? The answer is found in the law of diminishing marginal utility. Most economists explain this law by describing the satisfaction one derives from consuming a good such as an ice cream cone. The satisfaction derived from consuming a second cone might be less than the satisfaction derived from the first cone, and so on....