Author: Ryan McMaken

Much of the political thinking about violence in the United States comes from unfavorable comparisons between the United States and a series of cherry-picked countries with lower murder rates and with fewer guns per capita. We’ve all seen it many times. The United States, with a murder rate of approximately 5 per 100,000 is compared to a variety of Western and Central European countries (also sometimes Japan) with murder rates often below 1 per 100,000. This is, in turn, supposed to fill Americans with a sense of shame and illustrate that the United States should be regarded as some sort … Continue reading →

With the latest school shooting, all humane people are expected to jump up and do something to stop the next shooting. The most popular response among media pundits and national policymakers right now is an expansion of the various prohibitions now in place against guns. For anyone familiar with the history of prohibitions on inanimate objects, however, these appeals to prohibition as a “common sense” solution are rather less convincing. Americans and others have tried a wide variety of similar prohibitions before, and with mixed results at best. Nowadays, prohibitions on drugs are in decline as states continue to unravel … Continue reading →

Following the July 5 “no” vote in Greece against the terms of the negotiated bailout, European elites swore they would no longer negotiate: [E]urozone officials shot down any prospect of a quick resumption of talks, even though finance ministers were planning to meet during the week to discuss the fallout from the vote. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande immediately scheduled a bilateral meeting. “Tsipras and his government are leading the Greek people on a path of bitter abandonment and hopelessness,” Germany’s Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel told the Tagesspiegel daily. He said negotiations with Athens now were … Continue reading →

With Labor Day upon us, newspapers across the US will be printing op-eds calling for a mandated “living wage” and higher wages in general. In many cases, advocates for a living wage argue for outright mandates on wages; that is, a minimum wage set as an arbitrary level determined by policymakers to be at a level that makes housing, food, and health care “affordable.” Behind this effort is a philosophical claim that employers are morally obligated to pay “a living wage” to employees, so they can afford necessities (however ambiguously defined) on a single wage, working forty hours per week. … Continue reading →

The term “Sagebrush Rebellion” is again showing up in newspapers across the American west as states seek more control over federal lands within their own boundaries. As with the original Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s, several western states, where the federal government owns well over one-third of land within the states, have begun to look to more local control of lands as an answer to federal indifference, mismanagement, and outright hostility. In at least one case — Utah — the state has initiated a lawsuit in an effort to wrest more control of lands out of federal hands. … Continue reading →

Hosting the Olympic Games isn’t as popular as it used to be. This week, Boston cancelled its bid to host the 2024 summer Olympics. The city was forced to cancel the effort in response to opposition to what The Nation called the “debt, displacement, and militarization of public space” that the Olympics brings to every host city. Basically, the taxpayers and citizens of Boston weren’t in the mood to foot the bill for an enormous party for the richest and most powerful plutocrats of Boston and the United States. While the Olympic Games may have once been about sport and … Continue reading →

Much of the current immigration debate in the United States centers around the issue of “amnesty,” which is a vague term that may mean anything from “we won’t deport you” to “let’s fast-track you to citizenship and voting rights.” From a laissez-faire perspective, the deportation aspect of amnesty — an increase in federal inaction — is one thing. The extension of voting privileges, though, is something else entirely. Indeed, the amnesty debate has helped to illustrate the difference between real, concrete property rights, and the much different political “rights” such as voting. Limiting property rights is always illegitimate. Limiting political … Continue reading →

The secessionist impulse doesn’t seem to be going away in Europe. This month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the latest drive for secession comes from Sardinia. The leaders of the movement propose that the island, only part of Italy since the 1860s, be joined to Switzerland instead. The Sardinians have a tough row to hoe in convincing the Swiss to accept them as the newest Swiss canton (Sardinians do have a coastline to offer, however), but the whole episode illustrates yet again that the national borders drawn on the map over the past two centuries are beginning to outlive … Continue reading →

Pope Francis’s new encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” has been released to much acclaim from the mainstream media. One German news source declares “Papal encyclical could break climate change deadlock.” “Pope Francis’ views on climate change present a moral challenge to many 2016 GOP contenders,” declares US News and World Report. Not in many decades has a papal document been so easily used as a tool for political and electoral ax-grinding. Indeed, we would not normally cover a papal document at mises.org at all. Benedict’s “Caritas in Veritate,” for example, was published without any mention in free-market circles. … Continue reading →

Magna Carta recently turned 800. The Great Charter is often hailed as the first event in a series of limitations on the power of government. For Americans, Marga Carta seems even more important because it is a document that was written and signed for the purpose of limiting the power of a monarch. Americans love grandiose gestures in the form of written documents such as Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact and the Constitution of 1787, and the document is today taught to school children as a sort of proto-Bill of Rights. And to a certain extent it is. It … Continue reading →

The IRS reports that more people renounced their US citizenship during the first quarter of 2015 than during any other quarter in history. Notably, a sizable portion of those renouncing their citizenship are doing so to escape heavy taxation. The United States is the only country other than the military dictatorship of Eritrea that taxes its citizens living abroad on all forms of income. Interestingly, it is the wealthy (i.e., generally the most economically productive members of society) who are leaving permanently, and the fact that the US is driving out its wealthiest members is not a good sign for the … Continue reading →

With the victory of the Conservatives in last week’s British election, the future of both the European Union and the United Kingdom looks more doubtful. Newly re-elected Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, in order to please anti-EU constituents who were essential to his re-election, promised a referendum on EU membership by 2017, although it could come sooner than that. At the same time, the promised referendum is again inflaming secessionist sentiment among Scottish nationalists and separatists who wish to remain a part of the EU. Naturally, it would be highly simplistic to point to the EU issue as the only major issue … Continue reading →

With the creation of the BRICS bank and now the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the major economies of the world are hoping to lay the foundation for a multi-polar financial world beyond the unilateral control of the United States. Due to the enormous size of the US economy, coupled with the reserve status of the US dollar, the United States government has long been able to achieve strategic and military goals through flexing its financial power. This power has long allowed the US government to buy allies and friends among foreign regimes, to finance proxy wars, and to threaten … Continue reading →

Since I’m not a person who follows the climate-change debate or climate science in detail, I don’t get involved in discussions over temperature readings or climate trends. On the other hand, I find it’s a very bad idea to leave the science of economics and political economy up to climate scientists and their friends in politics who tend to be woefully deficient in their knowledge of how economies work or how scarce goods and amenities can be preserved, obtained, or manufactured. It seems that for the global warming lobby, all that is necessary to set everything right is to hand … Continue reading →

Much of the push to raise minimum wages centers on the assumption that each individual worker should be paid an amount that allows the worker to purchase food, health care, transportation, and housing based on that one wage alone. In many cases, the living wage claims extend to the claim that each worker — or two adult workers, in some cases — should be able to support a family of four or more. Unfortunately, the “solution” to this challenge generally proffered these days is the minimum wage, which as we have seen here, here, here, and here, only serves to … Continue reading →