Mises Institute Daily Articles

Economic Causes of War

Ludwig von Mises — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

There are no economic causes for armed aggression within a world of free trade and free enterprise. In such a world, no individual citizen can possibly derive any advantage from the conquest of a province or a colony.... The wars of the 20th century have been, to be sure, economic wars. But they have not been caused by capitalism, as the socialists would have us believe. They are wars caused by governments aiming at complete political and economic omnipotence, and have been supported by the misguided masses of these countries.

Is Our Future Really $0?

Fernando Herrera-Gonzalez — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Chris Anderson, a well-known business guru in the world of online commerce, imagines a world in which all internet services are free. But he has made an error. The reason some goods are given away for free in some markets has no relation to any hypothetical notion of "marginal costs tending to zero." In fact, those supposed free goods are "given" to us in exchange for our time and attention. As time is an increasingly scarce resource, its value is steadily rising, in terms of storage, processing, and bandwidth.

Anarchy in the Skies

Markus Bergstrom — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The thought of abolishing all government regulation of the aviation sector and handing this task over to the free market is, to most people, as unthinkable and alien an idea as that of privatizing all police and courts. The general perception is that air travel requires central and international control and regulation by governments in order to prevent total anarchy in the skies (in the derogatory sense). But are governments really needed to accomplish this task, or can it and should it be handled entirely by the free market?

Spotlight on Keynesian Economics

Murray N. Rothbard — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

All Keynesians conceive of the State as a great potential reservoir of benefits, ready to be tapped. The prime concern for the Keynesian is to decide on economic policy — what should be the economic ends of the State and what means should the State adopt to achieve them? The State is, of course, always synonymous with "we": What should "we" do to insure full employment? is a favorite query. (Whether the "we" refers to the "people" or to the Keynesians themselves is never quite made clear.)

The Uses of History

David Gordon — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Gordon Wood's defense of objective history is salutary, and besides this, as one would expect from a historian of his eminence, he makes many illuminating remarks about concrete issues in American history. Despite its considerable merits, though, his book suffers from a fundamental flaw. He protests against ideologists who impose their own concerns on the past; but Wood himself has definite views about the nature of the past that are as much theoretical impositions as those of the writers he challenges.

Does Money Taint Everything?

Jeffrey A. Tucker — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Let's pull this sentence out of the civic pieties of our time and see what's wrong with it: "We should all volunteer our time in charitable causes and give back to the community in a labor of love." We can't argue with the instruction here, or the sentiment behind it. My argument is with the choice of language. It contains a word and three phrases the common usage of which can be highly misleading.

Natural Disasters, It Turns Out, Are Bad

Mark Thornton — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It seems that we may never rid ourselves of the broken-window fallacy. it's not only that disasters just have a silver lining: economists have long believed that natural disasters and wars are actually good for the economy! Until recently they have not made any attempt to empirically test their views. Now the good news. A recently published paper in Economic Inquiry by Cuaresma, Hlouskova, and Obersteiner brings the positive benefits of disasters into question.

Are We Running Out of Food?

Kel Kelly — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

If we had free world markets, food would be exported from some countries, such as the United States and Europe, where food is plentiful, to countries where it is needed. This is because it would be profitable to ship goods to needy areas like Africa, where shortages were making prices rise. The fact that this is not currently happening can be a result only of government price controls (which prevent prices from rising in needy countries), trade restrictions, or some other government barrier that prevents people from getting what they need.