Everyone knows the rule: drink no liquor before noon. How insufferable such advice is! It has caused morning drinkers to hide their habits, deny them when confronted, and otherwise feel like they are doing something wrong or immoral or socially intolerable, a combination which leads to other forms of pathology. It is time for them to stand up and
You know why so many men walk around with sloppy hair? We hate haircuts. You have to drive there to get one, which represents decline, because if you know about Figaro from Rossini’s “Barber of Seville,” the barber came to your home (but then he also pulled out your teeth and passed on furtive notes arranging encounters of various sort, etc.). In
Pundits and bloggers are addicted to decrying the supposed cell-phone addiction of Americans. ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , and 11 ). Calls for government to do something about it can’t be far behind, especially considering the other claims that cell phones give us tumors, gut our memories, and jackhammer our brains. There are even
Everyone has heard something described as a Rube Goldberg machine, and most of us know what this means: some crazy convoluted way of accomplishing a task that would otherwise be quite simple. That’s how Webster’s defines it. The phase most often applies to overly complicated software but it was also applied to the Clinton health care plan and
At the Mises University this year, there will be another performance of “ Mises: The Musical “ that will feature some changes from the last performance, though they won’t be as substantial as the ones made by Daniel D’Amico in this innovative version of the Mises Circle song: “Mr. Stonier and Mr. Sweezy.” The original in German tells the story of
I was just having a conversation with a visiting political philosopher from Northern Italy. He asked about a sense he has picked up from American political philosphy literature and culture. He said, and he was cautious in saying so, that he sensed that “Rothbard seems to be somehow ostracized by the profession.” He meant that mainstream books and
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.