Donald Trump had a good week in Washington, managing to get both a spending bill and his version of healthcare reform through Congress. Unfortunately good news for politicians is often bad news for Americans. The Republican plan simply tinkers at the edges of Obamacare, failing to address the systemic issues that exist after a century of government regulating the relationship between doctors and patients. As Ryan McMaken noted this week, while it's inevitable voters will blame "the free market" when Trumpcare ends up failing, the real problem is that one-third of Americans are already on some sort of government healthcare.
In other words, the reality America faces is that it is already a typical Western welfare state.
Mises Weekends features a lecture by Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, based on his The Economics and Ethics of Private Property. Hoppe, like Rothbard, connects laissez-faire economics to normative libertarian theory with laser-like precision and inexorable logic. As he explains, property isn't just a social construct determined by legislative fiat, but rather a necessary component of self-ownership and the foundation of a free society.
We're excited that Dr. Hoppe will be joining us this October at our 35th Anniversary event in New York City. The event is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, register today!
And in case you missed them, here are this weeks Mises Wire articles, covering a wide array of topics including the Fed, housing markets, healthcare, the shifting global economy, social justice and the will of the people.
- How Liberty Defined Western Civilization by Ludwig von Mises
- The Myth of the "Popular Will" by Ferghane Azihari and Christophe Seltzer
- Only Trump Has Been Honest About This One Issue by Tho Bishop
- How Governments Outlaw Affordable Housing by Ryan McMaken
- One-Third of Americans Are on Government Healthcare by Ryan McMaken
- Venezuela Before Chávez: A Prelude to Socialist Failure by José Niño
- William Baumol, RIP by Matthew McCaffrey
- Obamacare? Trumpcare? Get Ride of It All by Chris Rossini
- FOMC Keeps Rates Steady by C.Jay Engel
- The Fed Will Likely Chicken Out on Planned Rate Hikes by Thorsten Polleit
- How States Can End the Fed's War on Fishing by Tho Bishop
- What Nassim Taleb Can Teach Us by Jeff Deist
- Rising Oil Prices Don't Cause Inflation by Frank Shostak
- Americans Are More Mobile Than Many Other Societies — And That's Not Always Good by Ryan McMaken
- The Horrors of Communist China by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
- The Pope's Favorite Straw Man: "Individualism" by Ryan McMaken
- Social Justice and Mediocre Intellectuals by Ludwig von Mises
- China's Plan to Subvert the Global Dollar Standard by Alasdair Macleod
- An Interview with James Buchanan
- Central Bank's Obsession with Price Stability Leads to Economic Instability by Frank Shostak
