in turn enable further types of interactions beyond the realm of business. The genius of the market is that it enables a wide array of individuals, groupings, and associations to organize spontaneously to advance their various interests in a cooperative fashion that yields win-win arrangements.
Featured Posts
Blog
Let’s put the next SpaceX in our 401(k)s before its launch onto public markets
As Artemis II achieved liftoff for the first moon voyage in more than 50 years, space news also rocked the investment world with the breaking…
Blog
The consequences of American socialism: A review of John Kenneth Galbraith’s Economic Development
John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1963 book Economic Development asks the same question Adam Smith asked: where does wealth come from? His answers are very different…
Blog
The missing guardrail in crisis politics: Discipline
Modern American governance has developed a troubling pattern. Economic shocks like the 21st century’s financial panics and pandemic are often met with vast expansions of…
Search Posts
Blog
When Kittens Explode
A fascinating Kickstarter funding campaign just ended yesterday, and it was a major one. A new card game with the alarming title of “Exploding…
Blog
The Empire Strikes Back!
Right-of-center groups have for some time become a bit complacent. Sure the left had the universities, the media, and pop culture—but we had the think…
Blog
Educating Tomorrow’s Business Leaders on Markets and Politics
This weekend I attended a fascinating event at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on the subject of economic inequality. Prof. …
Blog
Seven Quotes about Communism: Take 2
A few years ago I assembled several quotes about Communism that I thought would make good epitaphs for it. Unfortunately, the ideology has turned…
Blog
Thanksgiving and Markets
When the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony celebrated the first Thanksgiving on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, they shared a feast with the Pokanoket tribe, in thanks to…
Blog
Corporate Action against Disease Points Way to Resiliency Strategy for Developing World
In a piece at The Freeman today, I examine how corporations in the developing world have reacted to the threat to their workers from diseases such…
Blog
The Tesla File: Government Favors Cut Both Ways
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors has become a fascinating case study in economic freedom in recent years, although the narrative is a complicated one. The…
Blog
Farewell to Our Friend, Leonard Liggio
We are saddened to hear our friend Leonard Liggio passed away this morning. Today, the liberty movement has lost an intellectual champion. The Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Billionaire Diversity: Foreign vs. Domestic
Brookings Institution scholar Darrell West, whose new book Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust is being released later this week, has another intriguing graphic…
Human Events
Top-Rated Economies of the World Are Not By Coincidence
Isn’t it odd how we assign human characteristics to inanimate objects? We rank the “friendliest,” “least hospitable,” “most free” regions and countries. We nickname urban…
Blog
Celebrate Billionaire Diversity
Darrell West, a Vice President at the Brookings Institution, has a new book coming out next week on the political influence of the very wealthy,…
Blog
The American (Business) Revolution
On our nation’s 238th birthday, a flood of public events, political speeches, and TV specials will remind us of the courage of our colonial ancestors…
Business Insider Australia
How A ‘Bunch Of Commies’ Are Forcing The Fortune 500 To Stop Destroying Rain Forests, Overfishing, And Burning Fossil Fuels
Even Greenpeace’s detractors have taken note of the organisation’s newfound potency. Fred Smith, former president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and founder of the…
Forbes
Vietnam’s Road Back From Serfdom
We dropped bombs on their heads, defoliated their forests, and destroyed their villages “in order to save them.” We tore apart the fabric of…
News Release
I, Pencil Short Film Wins Reason Foundation Award
I, Pencil, a short film produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and adapted from the 1958 essay by the late Leonard E. Read, has won…
Grist
Sally Jewell Doesn’t Want Any Climate Deniers At Interior
Such moralizing would be funny were it not for the chilling effect it is bound to have in an agency already mired in group think.
Forbes
We Are Gathered Here Today To Witness The Burial Of The Protestant Work Ethic
Economic values do not spring from a vacuum. They are rooted in the broader moral values we rely on to navigate our lives. Let me…
National Review
Obama’s Climate Plan: It’s for the Kidz
Yes, the official subtitle of “President Obama’s Plan to Cut Carbon Pollution” is “Taking Action for Our Kids.” That should give you plenty of clues…
National Review
EPA vows better records management amid criticism
A pair of conservative groups – the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the American Tradition Institute – have expanded their push for more records disclosure…
National Review
Eight States Join Challenge of Law That Regulates Financial Industry
The move comes more than four months after three other AGs joined the suit, which was originally filed in June by the State National Bank…
Financial Times
Letter to the Editor: Companies should never apologise for making products people enjoy
Sir, The key (if unintended) message of Alan Rappeport’s analysis of Coca-Cola’s response to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “anti-obesity” measures is that corporate appeasement…
Blog
Adam Smith’s Recommendation To End Illegal Immigration
Restrictions on immigration have created a black market in labor and movement. Currently, the U.S. government issues only 10,000 green cards to workers who lack higher…
Blog
James Buchanan, 1919-2013
Economics has lost one of its greats. James Buchanan has passed away at age 93. Born on a Tennessee farm in 1919, he continued working…
Forbes
Hurricane Sandy, and the Invisible Hand of Recovery
Once again, a terrible natural disaster strikes, and Americans from the Carolinas to New England are doing their best to sort through the wreckage and…
Forbes
History’s Witness: Prague, Communism, And The Socialist Ideal
What is it about the “noble ideals” of socialism that makes people forget the lessons of their actual practice? If you need yet another reminder,…
Blog
Remembering Elinor Ostrom
Among the individuals with whom I wish I could have greater opportunities to exchange ideas is Elinor Ostrom. She passed away today, and now I…
Reason
Leftwing Pitchforkers: Kill the Limited Government Monsters!
From Ronald Bailey's article in Reason: In a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal about the relentless Team Blue crusade…
Blog
Twenty Years without Hayek
F.A. Hayek died twenty years ago today. In his long career—his first book was published in 1929, his last in 1988—he made important contributions to…
Reason
Is Your Company Ready to Meet its New Disability Hiring Quota?
Has the economy got you worried about reelection? Looking for clever ways to showcase your bona fides as a promoter of “fairness,” champion of the…
Blog
CSR: Business’s Shampoo?
To the Editor, Financial Times: Gillian Tett notes the vogue among CEOs for “corporate social responsibility” (When Making Shampoo Becomes a Service to Society).
Wall Street Journal
Letter to the Editor: McDonald’s and Pepsi’s Different Response to Pressure
Holman Jenkins's "What Pepsi Can Learn From McDonald's" (Business World, Jan. 28) hits on a failure of corporate management that is far more widespread…
Wall Street Journal
The Ability to Fire People Creates More and Better Jobs
“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” By speaking the truth, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney committed the cardinal…
Blog
The Compassion of Adam Smith
It's much more fashionable to attack Adam Smith these days than to read him. Yes, he favored economic liberalism, which wasn't exactly in style in…
Townhall
The War on Lemonade
America is a country founded on entrepreneurship and free enterprise. That’s why one of its most enduring childhood traditions is the lemonade stand. It teaches…
Townhall
Fred Smith on the Future of the Automobile
CEI President and Founder Fred Smith appeared on a panel at the 2011 Washington Auto Show to discuss the…
Study
Study and Understand Corporate Social Responsibility
Full Document Available in PDF Congress should study the confusion created in the…
News Release
Protest San Francisco’s Happy Meal Ban – While You Still Have a Choice
Washington, DC., November 16, 2010—The Competitive Enterprise Institute invites you to consider taking your family to McDonald’s for Happy Meals on Saturday, November 20th, to…
Townhall
Democrats Support Yet Another Bailout
Blog
Celebrating Bastiat
Economist Don Boudreaux reminds us that 209 years ago today, the great economic journalist Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was born. F.A. Hayek in his introduction…
Townhall
USA Today Cheers Proposed Financial Protection Agency
Cablefax
FCC Releases Title II Broadband NOI for Comment
Cablefax discusses Ryan Radia and Wayne Crews's comments on the FCC Title II Broadband NOI. Reaction to this vote was immediate. Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Cablefax
BP’s Disturbingly Close Ties to Obama Administration
Columnist Tim Carney notes that BP, responsible for the massive oil spill, is “a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s…
Comment
CEI Comments to the FCC on the “Future of Media” Inquiry
Full Document Available in PDF FCC’s “Future of Media” Campaign vs. Separation of Speech and State The Duty to Expand Communications Liberty…
Cablefax
Dodd’s Main Street Punishment Bill
With the focus this week on health care’s “home stretch” and concerns about government limiting the ability of ordinary Americans to make choices about…
Cablefax
The Corker-Dodd-Alinsky Bill? : Center-Right Coalition Letter Warns about “Proxy-Access”
Capitol Confidential and Jim Hoft have done an excellent job laying out concerns with the potential “compromise” bill that comes out of Sen. Bob…
Cablefax
Credit Card Bill of Rights
Cablefax
Proxy Access: The Obama-Dodd-Alinsky Shareholder Jujitsu
What would Saul Alinksy do? In the wake of defeats for the Obama administration last month both with Scott Brown’s stunning Senate…
Cablefax
Contrasting Concurrences of Clarence Thomas: Deploying Originalism and Paternalism in Commercial and Student Speech Cases
Cablefax
Credit Card Act Hits Cardholders, Entrepreneurs
Today, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 goes into effect and is being hailed as a boon for consumers.
Newsletter
Child Support Disputes, NFL Claims “Who Dat?” and Anti-terrorism Police Drills
Virginia legislators vote down a bill which would have forced non-custodial parents to pay child support for their children through college.
Cablefax
The Corporate Library: Servant of Special Interests
Full Document Available in PDF Labor unions, left-leaning foundations and activists declare their support…
Cablefax
Reforms Bode Ill for Tax-Free Health Accounts
Washington Examiner
Seven Quotes about Communism
The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall was widely remembered this past November, the 20th anniversary of one of the most momentous events in the…
Newsletter
Wall Street Meets the White House, EPA Rules on Greenhouse Gases and Health Care Divided
President Obama hosts a White House summit with Wall Street banking leaders The Environmental Protection Agency publishes its final rule designating greenhouse gases as a…
Newsletter
Health Care Competition, Financial Regulations in Court and Net Neutrality
The House Judiciary Committee votes to strip antitrust protections from health insurance companies who share risk information. Prominent officials and scholars endorse CEI’s Supreme Court…
News Release
Labor Unions Aim to Roll Back Pension Protections, Ramp Up Political Investments
Labor Unions Aim to Roll Back Pension Protections, Ramp Up Political Investments Pensions Should Invest to Profit Workers – Not Promote Union Politics…
Newsletter
Bottled Water, Microhoo and New Policy at the FDA
Critics of the bottled water industry call for federal labeling requirements. Microsoft and Yahoo begin the process of seeking federal approval for their announced business…
Newsletter
Regulating online drug ads, Google Book settlement, bottled water to the rescue
Yahoo being scrutinized online pharmaceutical ads. Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon sign on to oppose the Google Book settlement.
Comment
Letter to Securities and Exchange Commission: Reforming Shareholder Director Nominations
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to submit comments on the proposed rule governing shareholder nominations of corporate directors on behalf of the…
Washington Examiner
Possible FDA Ban on E-Cigarettes is Wrong Move
The FDA is now moving towards banning a smoking alternative that could save many lives. Every year, millions of smokers like my wife try…
Washington Examiner
Senate Passes Bill to Give FDA Tobacco Regulation
The Senate has just passed the FDA tobacco regulation bill by a 79-to-17 vote. The bill now goes to President Obama, who has said…
News Release
Bank Chairman to Speak Out on Banking Crisis and Capitalism at CEI 25th Anniversary Gala
This Thursday evening John Allison, Chairman of BB&T Bank, will deliver the keynote address at the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 25th Anniversary Gala. Allison will…
News Release
Obama Mitts Off Chrysler Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Obama Mitts Off Chrysler Chapter 11 Bankruptcy CEI Comments on Obama Takeover of Chrysler Washington, D.C., April 30, 2009—In the next 48 hours, Chrysler…
Washington Examiner
1,000,000 Tea Bags Find a Home
After park officials turned away Tea Party protesters' 1 million tea bags, the press conference was moved to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. We were happy…
Newsletter
Obama’s Greenhouse Gas Plan, Accounting Rules for Economic Recovery and Science v. Politics
The Obama administration plans to dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on the economic…
News Release
CEI Unveils Agenda for Congress
Washington, D.C., January 26, 2009—With the incoming Obama administration and the opening of the new Congress, the House and Senate are…
Washington Examiner
Geithner’s Nomination
Washington Examiner
Why Geithner Is A Bad Choice
Washington Examiner
The Embattled Geithner’s Nomination
National Association of Manufacturers
Obama and the Keynesian Revival
The National Association of Manufacturers discusses Iain Murray's National Review article on Obama's Keyenesian revival. Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute makes…
CNS News
Economists Say Bush ‘Chucked’ Free Market Principles Long Before Financial Crisis
CNS News discusses President George W. Bush's move away from free market principles. However, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute told CNSNews.com that…
Newsletter
Coleman v. Franken, Drug War TV and $8 Trillion Worth of Stimulus
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) announces a legal challenge to an election ruling favoring his rival Al Franken. ABC premieres the primetime drama “Homeland Security USA,”…
Newsletter
Bernard Madoff, Paul Krugman and Unexpected Winter Weather
The Securities and Exchange Commission investigates its own actions leading up to the discovery of Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scam. New York Times…
Newsletter
Bernard Madoff’s Personal Fortune, Clean Coal Technology and Wasteful Federal Spending
Alleged investment fraudster Bernard Madoff is ordered to disclose all of his financial assets to government investigators. Environmental groups launch a series of TV ads…
Op-Eds
Chevron’s Orwellian Crude Discovery
Chevron has unveiled a revolutionary new way of finding oil. It doesn’t involve satellite telemetry or seismic imaging or someother high-tech means of exploration. It…
Capital Reseach
The economic crisis is the fault of the American people
Newsletter
Greenhouse Gases, Broadband Speeds and the Future of Transit
California officials ignore the high costs of implementing the state’s greenhouse gas reduction plan. Comcast implements upgrades for broadband customers that will double download speeds…
Newsletter
Stimulus Redux, Benefits of Bottled Water and the Pro-Poverty Left
Senators consider a second round of taxpayer-financed economic stimulus. Bottled water producers attempt to work constructively with environmental groups that have called for additional taxes…
Capital Reseach
the costs of greenhouse gas regulation
News Release
Free Market Groups Launch BeyondBailouts.org
As the economy continues to adjust to the credit crunch, CEI and NTU partner to fight for real financial reforms, not reckless spending.
Newsletter
Voter Fraud, Disability Law and Green Hypocrisy
Republican House Leader John Boehner (R-OH) calls for an end to federal support for leftist activist group ACORN. President Bush signs into law new amendments…
Newsletter
Lehman Brothers Hearing, Consequences of the Bailout and Online Ad Controversy
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee holds a hearing to investigate the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The Wall Street bailout fails to slow economic…
Newsletter
Congress Does Energy, Lehman Bankruptcy and Price Gouging
The House of Representatives considers a new bill on offshore oil drilling. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers shakes confidence in the U.S. economy. Texas Attorney…
Op-Eds
Union Pension Funds Go Green — But It’s Not the Color of Money
Labor unions are endangering their members' retirement security by using their pension funds for environmental activism.
Newsletter
Home Schooling, Online Privacy and Oil Drilling
A California appeals court issues a major new ruling on home schooling. Members of Congress investigate online privacy and the use of “behavioral advertising.” New…
Capital Reseach
U.S. tech companies in China
Newsletter
Obama on Offshore Drilling, Tobacco Lawyer Goes to Prison and Video Game Violence
Sen. Barack Obama changes his position on offshore oil drilling. One of the nation’s richest attorneys begins a prison sentence for bribery. The government of…
Op-Eds
Poseur Shareholders
The green blitzkrieg hit the ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this week. The green blitzkrieg hit the ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this week. The meeting featured…
Newsletter
A Cooler Climate, Microsoft Drops Yahoo and Farm Subsidies
A new study in the journal Nature predicts a cooler climate than previously thought. Microsoft drops its bid to acquire Yahoo. Reporters identify more than…
Capital Reseach
5 Absurd Product Bans
News Release
Pressure Group Censors Anti-Gore Ad on YouTube
Electric Co-op Group Ignores ‘Fair Use’, Claims Copyright Infringement Over Seven Seconds of Footage (Click Here to View Ad)…
Capital Reseach
Dumb Product Bans
Study
The Five Dumbest Product Bans
This paper focuses on five clearly absurd product bans that seem to serve no social good.
News Release
Smoking Prevention Bill May Backfire
Contact: Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 Washington, DC, October 2, 2007—As the House Committee on Energy and Commerce prepares to hold a hearing tomorrow…
News Release
How Will Congress Respond to the State of the Union?
Contact: Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273…
Op-Eds
Back to Business School
It’s the beginning of the fall semester and MBA programs across the world are preparing students to become good business leaders.
Products
The Responsible Corporation
Does anybody believe that companies should be socially irresponsible? I don’t think so. The problem is that few people can seem to agree on…
Op-Eds
The Responsible Corporation
Does anybody believe that companies should be socially irresponsible? I don’t think so. The problem is that few people seem to agree on…
Op-Eds
Defining Virtue
by Isaac Post | May 21, 2006 David Vogel’s The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility offers…
Op-Eds
Corporate McSocial Responsibility
Fast-food gadfly Eric Schlosser has a new book out. Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food is Fast…
