George Reisman

The Economics of Collectivized Medical Care

The rise in health care costs is exactly what one should expect from the government’s long-standing policy of collectivizing the cost of medical care.

Real Social Security Reform

The only really proper reform of Social Security is the gradual abolition of the whole system.

The Truth About Coercive Labor Unions

Where the closed shop unions hold sway, companies cannot compete. Their market share falls and they ultimately go bankrupt. The only way that coercive unions can maintain any given share of the labor force is by finding new victims to replace the ones they have sucked dry.

Economic Inequality: Intellectuals Ignorance On Capitalism Masked By Envy

Intellectuals overcome with envy cannot tolerate the thought that in capitalist society other whom they regard as their intellectual and cultural inferiors, mere businessmen and capitalists, earn so much more and live so much better than they do.

President Bush’s Prescription Drug Benefit Program

The prescription drug benefit is a monster that should be killed before it is hatched.

Social Security Reform: The Capitalism Alternative

The end of Social Security and its diversion of funds into government consumption—the return to private, individual saving and provision for the future—will mean a great increase in saving and the accumulation of capital, because the savings of individuals will be invested, not squandered.

The Mythical Capitalist Threat: Billionaire George Soros vs. Capitalism

The admirers of billionaire George Soros’s essay have no more knowledge concerning the actual nature of laissez-faire capitalism than George Soros does.

Reducing Poverty by Reducing Government

Economic freedom, not government interference, is the means of overcoming poverty.

The Case for Free Trade

The fear of other people’s intelligence and ability applied to the production of goods we consume is not only profoundly wrong but also extremely dangerous.

Sins of Businessmen, Crimes of Politicians

Acts of dishonesty and fraud have no more essential connection to business activity than they do to the practice of medicine or the performance of music or to any of the arts or sciences.

Capitalism and Government Intervention

Many countries often thought to be socialist, either now or in the past, such as Sweden, Israel, and Britain under the old Labor Party, should be thought of as hampered market economies instead.

Deflation

What needs to be realized is that there are two distinct causes of generally falling prices. One is the increase in production and supply, which should never, never be confused with deflation, depression, or poverty. The other is a decrease in the quantity of money and or volume of spending in the economic system.

Capitalism and Job Safety

What is essential for safety is not bureaucratic regulation, but free, motivated human intelligence and judgment, which includes a consideration of the costs of achieving greater degrees of safety.

California Energy Enters The Dark Ages

In no case were the power companies and their profit motive responsible for brownouts or blackouts.

The Great Power-Shortage Myth

An electric-power blackout is a special case of the wider economic phenomenon of a shortage, that is, of a situation in which the quantity of a good that buyers are seeking to buy at the prevailing price exceeds the quantity of the good that the sellers possess and are willing to sell.

WorldCom as Piker: Profit Inflation by the U.S. Government

News reports now indicate that WorldCom’s overstatement of its profits in the last few years may exceed the $3.8 billion initially reported, perhaps by as much as an additional $3.3 billion, maybe even more. But whatever the ultimate figure may be—$7.1 billion...

The Stock Market, Profits, and Credit Expansion

The actual nature and consequences of the profit motive in a free market, an explanation of how profits are profoundly distorted by forcible government interference in the form of inflation and credit expansion, in ways that directly explain both the stock market boom of recent years and today’s stock market bust.