Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. – AYN RAND
Trust-Busters and Courts Don’t Know How to Maximize Shareholder Return Better Than Private Entrepreneurs D. T. Armentano is professor emeritus in economics at the University of Hartford and author of Antitrust and Monopoly (Independent Institute) and Antitrust: The Case for Repeal (Mises Institute). Critics of Microsoft, rallied by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s finding that the […]
Strikers must, however, recognize that employers possess options as well. An employer may refuse the pay hike, lock the workers out, and/or seek replacement workers.
The interstates were never the result of some individualistic, egoistic ‘love of the private automobile’, but rather of anti-capitalist, mixed-economy politics straight-up: the initiation of physical force for the sake of the greatest good for the greatest pressure group.
Locke said that the only way Gates can fight government prosecutors is for the Microsoft founder to “assert proudly his right to his own existence — which means: the right to do business not as a public servant but as an individual with inalienable rights.”
Urban Renewal disfigured cities because of the introduction of eminent domain into the land development process.
Like other antitrust targets, Microsoft, is guilty–of something. They’re guilty of something terrible. They’re guilty of believing they’re guilty. They’re guilty of believing they’re evil. They’re guilty of apologizing for...
The antitrust laws are based on the economic theory of “pure and perfect competition” and deeper, on the ethical theory of altruism, or self-sacrificial service to others. What do the laws require? What illegal behavior do they cite? What punishments do...
The press coverage of Microsoft’s antitrust trial, up through the testimony of the final witness, has conveyed one consistent theme: Microsoft is losing. Its witnesses, we are told, have been caught in inconsistencies; Bill Gates’s videotaped testimony was...
The government is using people’s efforts to minimize the harm they suffer from rising prices to conceal the existence of those rising prices.
It May Be Bursting Now, and Faulty Economic Analysis Could Cost Investors Dearly
The morality of altruism or self-sacrifice is often presented as a form of benevolence, as if it simply means being nice to other people. But the actual meaning of this philosophy is a hatred of success. Under this morality, anyone who achieves some extraordinary...
Judge Jackson’s visceral antagonism to business is also revealed by his condemnation of Microsoft for winning the browser battle against Netscape when “superior quality was not responsible for the dramatic rise [in] Internet Explorer’s usage...
Microsoft’s achievements should be held up as a model of how to create and maintain a highly productive, innovative company. Yet Judge Jackson is unable to view any of these facts in a positive light. While Judge Jackson recognizes many of the concrete facts...
United States District Court Judge Thomas P. Jackson is crystal clear in his recent “findings of fact”: Microsoft is marked for destruction. But why does Judge Jackson want to punish one of the most successful corporations in American history? Because Bill...
The judge’s “finding of fact” in the Microsoft antitrust trial has declared the company to be a dangerous monopoly, which will now be open to punishment by the courts–including everything from regulation to a complete breakup of the company....
Judge Thomas Jackson’s decision against Microsoft is a travesty of justice.
Government should uphold and enforce market contracts–not violate freedom of contract by dictating the terms, changing the terms, or abrogating the terms of contracts
Hong Kong’s new government appears to be losing its inhibitions about contradicting market prices, favoring some industries over others, and using taxpayers’ money to dispense windfall profits to those in favor. The deal recently signed with Disney to...
What do the World Trade Organization protesters, President Clinton, and the Microsoft judge have in common? Answer: an almost appalling ignorance of Economics 101. The World Trade Organization, a consortium of 135 nations, met in Seattle to discuss ways to increase...
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has released his “findings of fact” in the Microsoft antitrust case. While his report did contain some correct information–such as the truism that a successful company tries to defeat its rivals–the central claims...
Microsoft did not gain its market share by having the government outlaw its competitors: Microsoft earned its position in the free-market as the result of freedom of competition. Microsoft is not a predator; Microsoft is the victim.
Part 1 of 6 in a Series of articles on Capitalism, Free-competition, Antitrust, and Microsoft The following article is an adaptation of a lecture Mr. Salsman gave at Harvard University, in May of 1999. The print version has been edited lightly in order to retain...
Warning: Over certain issues, otherwise intelligent people may, repeat, may suffer instantaneous, and often irreversible, brain-freeze. Take the minimum wage. The City Council in Santa Monica, Calif., a town also known as “Moscow on the Pacific,” just...
Antitrust Laws Are Inherently
As the inflation-induced appearance of wealth is made to substitute for the fact of wealth, the boom gives rise to a consumption that takes place at the expense of essential saving and capital accumulation and thus serves ultimately to cause impoverishment.
What the market at large did not foresee [which] perhaps could be called a ‘widespread error in thinking’, was that Japanese politicians would [take] political issue [with] the quickly increasing prosperity.
On March 3, 1999 Bill Gates will testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Microsoft against-anti trust charges. Prior to Gates’s testimony, activist Ralph Nader will be mobilizing his “public citizens” to condemn...
Every so often, without fail, the Republicans remind me why I don’t join the party. A recovering drug and alcohol abuser, living in the streets, recently told me the following story. One day, in desperate need of money, he went to the owner of a convenience...
Q: Don’t consumers have a right to buy Microsoft Windows without Internet Explorer? Does not Microsoft’s bundling of their products (i.e., Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Windows) into one package disrupt a person’s right to only have to...
I frequently read condemnations of Microsoft. It would be futile to put myself in the position of the Simpson prosecution, lending credibility to fantasies by treating them seriously. But some accusations have a surface plausibility, particularly to readers not versed...
The Review of Austrian Economics (RAE) recently published a review of my book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics that, while praising my book to some extent, seriously misrepresents or altogether ignores major portions of it.
The following question was emailed to Glenn Woiceshyn, by an ABC reporter, regarding the government’s assault on Microsoft. Reprinted below is Glenn’s reply. Q: What do you think of the latest addition of Bob Dole and Robert Bork to the anti-Microsoft...
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