Richard Ebeling

When Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom, he mentioned in the preface that he had often been told by his socialist colleagues that he would hold an important position in a future planned society, if only he would come around to agree with them.

Today, the media and a variety of more serious public policy publications are awash in articles and essays insisting that the postwar “neoliberal” era has finally and inescapably come to an end, with a far more “progressive” and socialist system the way of the future.

There is far more in the world that successfully manages and “regulates” itself without the controlling hand of the government than many of us pause to reflect on or understand. 

The Austrian School of Economics has been one of the most original and insightful approaches to economic understanding over the last century and a half.

Who do people consider to be less ethical or honest than either telemarketers or used car salesman? If you said Washington politicians, you’d be right on the button.

One of the issues that confronts the friends of freedom is how best to make the case for liberty as a political idea and ideal and as a policy proposal.

America and some other parts of the world are facing a “revivalist” movement, but rather than being a religious revival, it is an ideological revivalism calling for a turn away from freedom and the open society.

Two events filled the television-news airwaves and social media as September 2019 was coming to an end.

We increasingly live in a new “dark age” of economic ignorance, and even stupidity.

It was French king Louis XIV (1638-1715) who famously declared, “L’etat c’est moi” (“I am the state”). This week, it was clearer than usual that this is an attitude apparently shared by Donald Trump, president of the United States. 

At any moment in time, the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.

It is never possible to know beforehand or with full certainty whether right ideas will win out in a particular place and at any particular time.

Promises, promises, promises. It is the season for political promises.