Many misconceptions about the nature of the free market system stem from an ignorance of who ultimately benefits from the market process. That the significant number of those who would benefit the most from the operations of the market—consumers—tend to also harbor much of the antagonisms against logically necessary features of the market highlights the unfortunate reality that the majority of people have yet to rightly understand how their best interests could be served by the mechanism of the market. Thus, it is not surprising that, in modern history, records abound of ambitious politicians, statesmen, and planners who have exploited this widespread ignorance in furthering utopian ends by means of eclectic and inherently contradictory policies which rational deliberation could easily

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

While organized labor across Nigeria is currently jubilant over their recent win in obtaining a minimum wage increase by fiat, every student of praxeology in Nigeria receives this news with mixed feelings and the utmost reservation, because we are cognizant of the outcomes which inevitably follow from such interventions in the free market.

Modern complex economies are remarkably characterized by the social division of labor. Individuals of varying abilities, personalities, and specialized technical knowledge in pursuing their self-interests integrate themselves into this social system by voluntarily participating in the various stages of production and exchange of goods and services.Oftentimes this voluntary system of social cooperation called the “free market system” is met with a series of violent interventions which ultimately impede the maximal satisfaction of most urgent wants. Recall that individuals in order to maximize utility usually grade their wants according to an ordinal scale of importance and expect to satisfy their most urgent wants through the mechanism of a free market.As Nigerians currently cry out in

Every year, thousands of Nigerian youths who are below the age of thirty and who’ve completed their undergraduate studies—whether in Nigeria or abroad—are compelled by law to give up one year of their working time in active duty to the country under the auspices of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), an agency of the government.It has now been fifty years since the establishment of the NYSC mandatory program under Decree No. 24 of May 22, 1973 by the then–military regime led by General Yakubu Gowon (retired). Among other stated social objectives of the NYSC as written in the decree is “to raise the moral tone of the Nigerian youths by giving them the opportunity to learn about higher ideals of national achievements, social and cultural improvements.” Whether these social objectives