The Free Market makes a difference

10/20/2005 Mises Wire T. Norman Van Cott

Here we go again with "Make a Difference Day"—the 4th Saturday in October, which is tomorrow.

Last year on this site, I made an argument that generated more heat than I expected: "the most important difference making Americans ever encounter, hands down, no questions asked, occurs day in and day out in the marketplace."

What Is The Mises Wire?

Mises Wire offers contemporary news and opinion through the lens of Austrian economics and libertarian political economy.

Submitting articles to Mises Wire

Reprints, Permissions & Copyrights

The views expressed on Mises Wire and mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

Subscribe to the Mises Wire

Latest Articles

Help Us Publish These Three New Books

04/26/2024 Mises Wire Mises Institute

Please consider helping us publish these three new books: The World at War, Full Reserve Banking vs. Real Bills Doctrine, and Austrian Business Cycle Theory: an Introduction. Everyone giving $500 or...

Low Time Preference Leads to Civilization

04/26/2024 Mises Wire Soham Patil

Time preference refers to the preference of satisfaction in the present as compared to a future time. A person who heavily prefers current consumption to future consumption has a high time preference...

Opposing Military Intervention: Loving Dictators or Hating War?

04/26/2024 Friday Philosophy David Gordon

America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators by Jacob Heilbrunn Liveright, 2024; 249 pp. Jacob Heilbrunn, who is the editor of The National Interest , is dismayed that some...

What Is the Purpose of Economic Theory?

04/26/2024 Mises Wire Frank Shostak

Mainstream economists believe our knowledge of the world of economics is elusive, so the criteria for choosing a theory should be its predictive power. If the theory “predicts,” it is regarded as a...

Word of the Day: Performative

04/26/2024 Power & Market Karen Kwiatkowski

The western media are, above all, phraseologists. Managing massive vertically integrated “states” requires the controlled and targeted use of repetitive government approved language, propaganda...

Meet the Writer

T. Norman Van Cott

T. Norman Van Cott, an adjunct scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, is professor of economics at Ball...

Free Trade Brings More Foreign Investment into the US. That’s a Good Thing.

04/10/2020 T. Norman Van Cott

Politicians and pundits have a blind spot when it comes to international economic transactions. They ignore a portion of trade! In particular, they ignore trade in claims on future income—that is, stocks and bonds.

Free Trade Brings More Foreign Investment into the US. That’s a Good Thing.

04/09/2020 Mises Wire T. Norman Van Cott

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. When politicians and pundits tackle international trade matters, discussions inevitably end up focusing on whether Americans get the short end...

Subscribe to our Mailing Lists

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.

Become a Member