Richard Ebeling

Professor of economics, former president of the Foundation for Economic Education

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Richard M. Ebeling (born 30 January 1950) is an American libertarian author. He was the president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) from 2003 to 2008. Ebeling is currently the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He has written and edited numerous books, including the three-volume Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises (Liberty Fund). His most recent works are Political Economy, Public Policy, and Monetary Economics: Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian Tradition, (Routledge, 2010), and Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom (Edward Elgar, 2003). He was a co-author and co-editor of In Defense of Capitalism (5 vols.).

The Future of Freedom Foundation, Founder; Vice President of Academic Affairs, 1989-2003

Hillsdale College, Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics, 1988-2003

Web Pages

Advocates for Self-Government - Libertarian Education: Richard M. Ebeling - Libertarian
Includes profile, photograph and quote

... Richard M. Ebeling has earned a laudable reputation as a professor, writer, and editor. But what may turn out to be his most memorable contribution to the history of libertarian thought is an event that, were it a movie, might be called Indiana Jones Meets Ludwig von Mises. It's a bit of intellectual archeology that involves Nazis, the Soviet Army, and documents buried in a secret Moscow archive for five decades. ... Ebeling has also consulted with the government of Lithuania and with members of the Russian Parliament on free-market reforms and the privatization of socialist economies.

Richard Ebeling - Online Library of Liberty
Includes short profile and links to several works edited by Ebeling

Richard Ebeling is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

Writings

An American Empire! If You Want It instead of Freedom, Part 1, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Apr 2003
Examines Garet Garrett's 1952 essay "The Rise of Empire" and contrasts it with Charles Krauthammer's "The Unipolar Moment Revisited" and his concept of "unilateralism"

Fifty years ago, the classical liberal author and journalist Garet Garrett published a collection of essays called The People's Pottage (1953) ... [H]e tried to persuade the American people that the United States was on a new course that conflicted with the original conception of the nation ...
"The new unilateralism argues explicitly and unashamedly for maintaining unipolarity, for sustaining America's unrivaled dominance for the foreseeable future." And at the end of his article, paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin, he says to his readers, "History has given you an empire, if you will keep it."

Related Topics: Garet Garrett, Imperialism, Militarism, United States

Aristotle Understood the Importance of Property, by Richard M. Ebeling, 27 Sep 2016
Discusses Aristotle's views on private property and property rights (contrasting them with those of Plato), the "ends" of human life, economics ("household management"), wealth acquisition, prices, money and related topics

When we turn to another ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384 B.C.–322 B.C.), we find little of the political regimentation that characterizes his teacher, Plato. For Aristotle, the appropriate behavior is the "golden mean," that is, the avoidance of "extreme" or unrealistic goals or conduct ... His fundamental weaknesses were a failure to explain the actual basis of value in exchange; a misunderstanding of the nature of money transactions in the marketplace ...;" and a confused analysis of the role and logic of lending, borrowing, and the paying of interest.

Related Topics: Aristotle, Economics, Money, Private Property, Property, Property Rights

Civil Liberty and the State: The Writ of Habeas Corpus, Freedom Daily, Apr 2002
Highlights of English and American history on the writ of habeas corpus, in particular the 17th century conflict between Charles I and Edward Coke

Limiting the powers of government has been one of the leading struggles in the history of mankind. Through most of man’s time on earth, governments have presumed to rule, command, order, and threaten multitudes of human beings — to make the mass of humanity bend to the will of their political masters ... Recalling the battles that have been fought in the past to establish our civil liberties and the dangers that are always run when they are violated and denied is never so important as when they are once again under attack. The future of our freedom depends on it.

The Early Economists Who Tried to Save France, 31 Oct 2016
Discusses the Physiocrats, focusing on Quesnay and Turgot

In the middle decades of the eighteenth century two schools of thought emerged ... that were critical of Mercantilism, the government system of economic planning and regulation in the 1700s. In Great Britain, the primary thinkers were members of what has become known as the Scottish Moral Philosophers. In France the proponents of the new ideas of economic freedom were known as the Physiocrats ... This was also France's last real chance for economic transformation before the corruption and financial chaos of the government would lead to the catastrophe and terror of the French Revolution that began in 1789.

Economic Ideas: Francis Hutcheson and a System of Natural Liberty, by Richard Ebeling, William Holden, 21 Nov 2016
Discusses the main themes in Hutcheson's System of Moral Philosophy

Scotland would seem a strange place for the emergence of center of intellectual development that would influence the stream of ideas throughout the world. Scotland had been unified with England near the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was considered a "backwater" of European civilization. ... Yet, this was, in essence, a central message in Francis Hutcheson's own political and economic philosophy. And it was the starting point for Adam Smith's own profound contributions a few decades later, after his time studying with Hutcheson at the University of Glasgow.

Related Topics: Francis Hutcheson, Property Rights, Scotland, Adam Smith

Economics Ideas: David Hume on Self-Coordinating and Correcting Market Processes, by Richard M. Ebeling, 5 Dec 2016
Explores Hume's contributions to the then young subject of "political economy", particularly on the mercantilist view of the need for a "positive" balance of trade

David Hume was one of the most prominent of the Scottish Moral Philosophers. He is particularly famous as a philosophical skeptic, who, in his book, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), questioned whether man's reason and reasoning ability could successfully apprehend reality with any complete degree of certainty ... Hume concluded ... warning of dangers and absurdities resulting from government restrictions and controls on international trade, and on the benefits to all parties by leaving markets free to the peaceful and voluntary associations of trading partners, themselves ...

Related Topics: Free trade, Government, David Hume, Money

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: A Sesquicentennial Appreciation, The Freeman, Feb 2001
Broad biographical essay, including Böhm-Bawerk relationships with Menger, Mises and Schumpeter, and his two major works

In January 1914 there appeared three articles in one of the leading newspapers in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, world-renowned member of the Austrian school of economics and a three-time minister of finance. He warned his readers that the Austrian government was following a policy of fiscal irresponsibility. ... To his last, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk defended reason and the logic of the market against the emotional appeals and faulty reasoning of those who wished to use power and the government to acquire from others what they could not obtain through free competition.

The Fable of the Bees Tells the Story of Society, 15 Nov 2016
Discusses the "moral" of Mandeville's work The Fable of the Bees, that "prosperous, wealthy and great societies only arise from men's self-interested desires"

One of the major turning points in social and economic understanding emerged in the 1700s with the theory of social order without human design. Before the eighteenth century, most social theory presumed or took as a working assumption that human society had its origin and sustainability in the creation of social institutions ... Here, then, was the germ of an idea–self-interest and its beneficial though unplanned side effects–that would have profound influence and repercussions a few decades later in the hands of the Scottish Moral Philosophers.

Related Topics: Economics, Bernard Mandeville, Society

Forgotten Lessons, Freedom Daily, Mar 1996
Review of Forgotten Lessons: Selected Essays of John T. Flynn (1995), edited by Gregory P. Pavlik

Most histories about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administration leave the impression that except for the ignorant and the reactionary, practically no one opposed the growth of government in the 1930s and 1940s. Nothing could be further from the truth. ... Now in this post-Cold War era, the U.S. military and defense-related industries are searching for a new rationale to keep the spending and their jobs going. Maybe this is a large part of what Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia are really all about. This is what makes John T. Flynn's essays as relevant today as when he penned them several decades ago.

Freedom, Security, and the Roots of Terrorism against the United States, Freedom Daily, Oct 2001
Reflections on the 11 September attacks a few weeks after, discusses the reasons for the terrorist attacks and proposes certain measures to deal with the situation

On September 11, 2001, I was in Bratislava, Slovakia, attending the annual meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international association of classical liberals and advocates of the free market, established in 1947 by Friedrich A. Hayek ... Whether peoples in other parts of the world come to understand and value freedom and a peaceful society as we do is beyond our control to dictate. If we try to socially engineer their future through the means of political and military intervention we will be risking our own freedom and security, and may end up losing both at the end of the process.

Henry Hazlitt: An Appreciation, by Roy Childs, Richard Ebeling, Nov 1985
Tribute to Hazlitt on his 91st birthday, reviews his career and works

With the celebration of his 91st birthday this November, Henry Hazlitt can look back upon a career almost unmatched by any other advocate of freedom in this century. From the publication of his first book ... at the age of twenty-one, to the present day, one contribution has followed another ... And even as you read this, somewhere ... a young man or woman is beginning to read ... Hazlitt's masterpiece, Economics in One Lesson. Myths are being shattered, and a new world is opening to them. Some of them will go on to become the intellectual and political leaders of tomorrow, carrying on the fight for human freedom.

Related Topics: F. A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, The State

How I Became a Libertarian and an Austrian Economist, by Richard M. Ebeling, 2 May 2016
Autobiographical essay highlighting the people and events who influenced Ebeling in his path to libertarianism and Austrian economics

I suppose I can date my interest in both libertarianism and Austrian Economics from the day I was born. The doctor grabbed me by my little feet, turned me upside down and spanked my tiny bottom. I began to cry out. That is when I realized the fundamental axiom that, "man acts." ...The rest is history ...
In my undergraduate days, I had no one to talk to about these ideas. My professors were at best indifferent and most often antagonistic ... But it was the starting point for the rest of my intellectual and professional life. I've had no regrets and an immense enjoyment along the way.

Individual Liberty and Civil Society, Freedom Daily, Feb 1993
Reflects on Benjamin Constant's lecture "The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns" on what liberty meant to the ancient Greeks vs. the 19th century Europeans and Americans and about the 20th century reversion to statism

In 1819, the French classical liberal, Benjamin Constant, delivered a lecture in Paris entitled, "The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Modems." He drew his audience's attention to the fact that in the world of ancient Greece, "the aim of the ancients was the sharing of [political] power among the citizens of the fatherland ..." ... As the new century rapidly approaches, we are continuing our journey back to the political world of three thousand years ago. We continue to trade away the modern ideal of individual liberty for the ancient ideal of collective tyranny.

Israel M. Kirzner and the Austrian Theory of Competition and Entrepreneurship, Freedom Daily, Aug 2001
Written on occasion of Kirzner's academic retirement at age 71; begins with biographical summary and then focuses on Kirzner's understanding of entrepreneurs in the market "process" and the detrimental effects of government intervention in the market

With the end of the 2001 spring semester, one of the leading Austrian economists in the world, Dr. Israel M. Kirzner, has decided to retire from formal academic life at the age of 71. Over a scholarly career that has spanned more than 40 years, Kirzner has enriched our understanding of the theory of the competitive process ... These insights about the market process are part of the legacy that Israel Kirzner leaves us ... But we can still hope that he will occasionally "drop in" and share with us his thoughts and wisdom on the benefits and importance of the free market for the preservation of the free society.

John Stuart Mill and the Three Dangers to Liberty, Freedom Daily, Jun 2001
Evaluates John Stuart Mills arguments in his essay "On Liberty", in particular the three forms of tyranny posited by Mill and an element (private property) not emphasized by his analysis

John Stuart Mill's 1859 Essay "On Liberty” is one of the most enduring and powerful defenses of individual freedom ever penned. Both advocates and enemies of personal freedom have challenged either the premises or the logic in Mill's argument. They have pointed out inconsistencies or incompleteness in his reasoning ... That John Stuart Mill failed to sufficiently see [the misuse and abuse of political power] and defend liberty on this basis does not detract from the fact that "On Liberty" remains one of the greatest works that has been written in behalf of individual freedom during the last 200 years.

Ludwig von Mises: An Economist for Freedom and Free Enterprise, 29 Sep 2016
Discusses three major themes in the works of Mises, namely, business cycle theory, his critique of socialism and the unfettered market economy; includes list of suggested additional readings

September 29th marks what would be the 135th birthday of the famous Austrian Economist, Ludwig von Mises. Over the middle decades of the twentieth century, Mises made a number of profoundly important contributions that challenged many of the fashionable and influential collectivist and socialist ideas of his time ... [O]ne sees the principles behind and the potentials for human liberty and prosperity explained most clearly in his highly readable work, Liberalism: the Classical Tradition (1927), which is as refreshing and relevant a read today as when he penned it nearly 90 years ago.

Milton Friedman (1912-2006), by Richard M. Ebeling, Sheldon Richman, 17 Nov 2006
Memorial tribute, highlighting Friedman's role in opposing Keynesianism, and his books and other public activities (a revised version appeared in The Freeman Dec 2006)

FEE's staff and trustees mourn the passing of Milton Friedman, one of the twentieth century's most influential champions of individual liberty and free markets ... The 1976 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics ..., Friedman did more than any single person in our time to teach the public the merits of deregulation, privatization, low taxes, and free trade ... Friedman co-wrote (with George Stigler ...) one of the first publications FEE released ... Sadly, Friedman is gone from us now. But his legacy and devotion to liberty will inspire freedom lovers for many generations.

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 27: Milton Friedman's Second Thoughts on the Costs of Paper Money, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Mar 1999
Discusses how Friedman changed his mind about the advisability of a paper money standard

In July 1985, Milton Friedman delivered the presidential address at the Western Economic Association on the topic "Economists and Economic Policy" ... He stated that his many years in advocating a monetary "rule," under which the central monetary authority would increase the money supply at a constant annual rate ..., had been a waste of time ... Friedman also emphasized his ... view of such a gold-based monetary system: "A real gold standard is thoroughly consistent with [classical] liberal principles and I, for one, am entirely in favor of measures promoting its development."

Related Topics: Milton Friedman, Gold Standard, Government, Money

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 29: The Gold Standard in the 19th Century, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, May 1999
Discusses the evolution of the gold standard, from the creation of the Bank of England (1694), the Bank Restriction Act (1797), arguments for its repeal by David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, and its international development until the 1890s

The history of paper money is an account of abuse, mismanagement, and financial disaster. Generally, the classical economists of the 19th century understood that and warned of the dangers of paper money. In France, the lesson had been learned during the French Revolution, when a flood of paper money ... resulted in economic catastrophe ... In an age that believed in the superiority of free markets and private enterprise, it practiced the theory of monetary central planning. The gold standard, after all, was a government-managed monetary system.

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 30: The Gold Standard as Government-Managed Money, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jun 1999
Describes how, by allowing central banks to manage gold-backed currencies, the road was paved for central planning in other areas

In his 1942 book, This Age of Fable, German free-market economist Gustav Stolper pointed out:

Hardly ever do the advocates of free capitalism realize how utterly their ideal was frustrated at the moment the state assumed control of the monetary system ...

... Now at the end of the 20th century, however, there has emerged a new generation of free-market critics of monetary central planning who are in favor of market money and private, free banking. Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek have been the inspiration for this new school of advocates for a free market in money.

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 31: Ludwig von Mises on the Case for Gold and a Free Banking System, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jul 1999
Examines Mises' thinking on why the gold standard is needed, why it is necessary for it not be subject to political manipulation, why free banking is needed and the ideological environment required for its success

Throughout most of the 20th century, one of the leading proponents of the gold standard was the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. Why gold? Mises explained this many times, but did so, perhaps, most concisely in a 1965 essay entitled "The Gold Problem" ... [A]s market-oriented ideas have once again become a growing force in political debates, the idea of the denationalization of money has been raised as the alternative to central banking for the first time in more than a century. And the opening of this modern debate was begun by Mises's ... colleague, Friedrich A. Hayek, in the 1970s.

Related Topics: Banking, Gold Standard, Ludwig von Mises, Money

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 32: Friedrich A. Hayek and the Case for the Denationalization of Money, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Aug 1999
Shows the progression of Hayek's thinking on money from 1945 when he was agreeable to central monetary control to 1976 when he advocated a system of private competing currencies

Shortly after the publication of his now-famous book, The Road to Serfdom, in 1944, Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek was in the United States on a lecture tour. In April 1945, he appeared on an NBC radio broadcast ...
[Hayek] heralded a new campaign in the fight for freedom:

What we need is a Free Money Movement comparable to the Free Trade Movement of the 19th century. If we want free enterprise and a market economy to survive ... we have no choice but to replace the governmental currency monopoly and national currency systems by free competition between private banks of issue ...

Related Topics: Banking, Federal Reserve System, Government, F. A. Hayek, Money

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 33: Murray N. Rothbard and the Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Sep 1999
Examines the arguments made by Rothbard in his 1962 essay "The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar"

In 1962 there appeared a collection of essays edited by Leland B. Yeager entitled In Search of a Monetary Constitution. It contained contributions by ... Milton Friedman and Jacob Viner and ... James Buchanan. They each advocated a central monetary authority ...
Rothbard's central argument against fractional-reserve banking ... has been questioned by a number of free-market advocates ... [I]ndeed, the case for a private, free banking system, probably with fractional-reserve banking, has been the primary focus of the opponents of monetary central planning for the last two decades.

Related Topics: Banking, Money, Murray N. Rothbard, Mark Skousen

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part XVIII: Say's Law of Markets and Keynesian Economics, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jun 1998
Contrasts the views of John Maynard Keynes with "the commonsense foundations of economics" by explaining the basics of exchange and markets, and discussing Say's Law and John Stuart Mill's refinement

In the preface to The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes stated that "the composition of this book has been for the author a long struggle of escape ... a struggle of escape from habitual modes of thought and expression." What Keynes struggled to escape from were the commonsense foundations of economics ... Correct prices always ensure full employment; correct prices always ensure that supplies create a demand for them; correct prices always ensure the harmony of the market. This was the reality ... from which Keynes struggled so hard to escape.

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part XXIV: Milton Friedman's Framework for Economic Stability, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Dec 1998
Describes Friedman's criticisms of Keynesian policies and examines Friedman's own proposals for government intervention in the economy

In the post-World War II period in the United States, there have been few voices as important for the defense of the free market as that of Milton Friedman. In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, he forcefully challenged the trend towards increasing government control over economic life ... Friedman's proposed "monetary and fiscal framework for economic stability" legitimated the Keynesian arguments ... [T]he only issues remaining in dispute concerned how government should try to demand-manage the market economy, not whether it was needed or whether government should.

Related Topics: Milton Friedman, Government, Money, Taxation, Unemployment

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part XXVI: Milton Friedman and the Monetary "Rule" for Economic Stability, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Feb 1999
Examines Friedman's arguments, in a 1967 speech to the American Economic Association, about what monetary policy could not accomplish and his defense of a paper money standard in the 1960 book A Program for Monetary Stability

In 1967, Milton Friedman delivered the presidential address at the American Economic Association in Washington, D.C. His theme was "The Role of Monetary Policy." He argued that there was "wide agreement about the major goals of economic policy: high employment, stable prices, and rapid growth." ... Could a central monetary authority be trusted to follow such a "rule" and forgo the temptations of discretionary manipulation of the money supply? Was a paper money standard really less costly than a commodity standard like gold? Even Milton Friedman began to have second thoughts in later years.

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part XXV: Milton Friedman and the Demand for Money, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jan 1999
Describes the role of money according to Keynesians and contrasts it with Friedman's monetary theories in his 1956 essay "The Quantity Theory of Money–A Restatement"

In 1951, economist Howard S. Ellis happily pointed out, "... During the late thirties and the war yea-rs, it became fashionable with certain theoretical economists [the Keynesians] to stamp any especial concern with the supply of money and credit with the stigma of a hopelessly naive quantity theory ..." ...
Friedman's conclusion ... was that if the demand for money was far more stable than the Keynesians had assumed, then significant short-run fluctuations in economywide output and employment, as well as price inflations and deflations, had to have their source in changes in the supply of money.

Related Topics: Milton Friedman, Government, Inflation, Money

Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America, Freedom Daily, Oct 1993
Review of Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America (1993) by Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway

In 1932, the English economist Edwin Cannan delivered the presidential address to the Royal Economic Society. ... With the Great Depression nearing its bottom, Professor Cannan discussed why many industrial economies were suffering from massive unemployment. .... Vedder and Gallaway go on to discuss the detrimental consequences of government interference and regulation of the American labor markets throughout the post-World War II period to the present. Their analysis demonstrates beyond any doubt that the problem of unemployment has been caused by the state, not by any inherent flaws or failures in a free market.

Related Topics: Ludwig von Mises, Unemployment, Wages

The Quest for Cosmic Justice, Freedom Daily, Dec 1999
Review of The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999) by Thomas Sowell

On August 18, 1919, during the Russian Civil War that resulted in the triumph of communism and the creation of the Soviet Union, there appeared the following passage in the first issue of The Red Sword, a newspaper published in Kiev by the Bolshevik secret police ... The fundamental principle of the American experiment in freedom, Sowell argues, was captured in the Bill of Rights ... it is this freedom that is being threatened in America and the world ... by those who ... continue to claim that everything is permitted to them in the pursuit of making us and our world over into their utopian image of how they think we should be.

Say's Law and the Keynesian Revolution, Freedom Daily, Feb 1999
Review of Say's Law and the Keynesian Revolution: How Macroeconomic Theory Lost Its Way (1998) by Steven Kates

John Maynard Keynes ended his famous 1936 book ... by pointing out, "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly believed ... Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist ..." ... Say's Law, properly understood, explains both what causes unemployment and how to solve it. But the ghost of Keynes continues to point economic policy in the direction of inflationary demand stimulus in an attempt to bring markets back into balance.

Related Topics: Japan, Prices, Jean-Baptiste Say, Unemployment

Up From Freedom: Friedrich von Hayek and the Defence of Liberty, ama-gi, 1996
Opens with biographical and bibliographical details and then discusses Hayek's insights. concluding that he was fortunate to witness the collapse of communism which "demonstrated the practical impossibility" of social engineering

Friedrich August von Hayek was one of the greatest economists and political philosophers of the 20th century. After Ludwig von Mises, Professor Hayek was the leading figure of the Austrian School of Economics during the last six decades. He also was one of the most profound defenders of liberty over the last two hundred years ... Hayek's good fortune was that he lived to see his ideas proven right and those of his opponents shown to be relics of a bygone era ... The world, with the help of Hayek's ideas may finally complete the task of rising up from serfdom.

Reviews

Book Review: Red Flag Over Hong Kong, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jan 1997
Revew of Red Flag Over Hong Kong (1996) by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, David Newman and Alvin Rabushka, which discusses the then potential effects of the handover of Hong Kong to China

In 1996, Amnesty International released a report entitled "China, No One is Safe: Political Repression and Abuse of Power in the 1990s." ... [T]he state machinery of oppression, imprisonment, and torture in Communist China is ready at any moment to turn a human life into a nightmare ...
But just like the twilight shadows that slowly envelop the sky as the sun sets, communist darkness will cover Hong Kong and the unfortunate people there, many of whom escaped in the past to that 415 square miles of freedom precisely because they wanted to leave communism behind.

Related Topics: China, Communism, Hong Kong

Hayek: A Commemorative Album, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jul 1999
Review of Hayek: A Commemorative Album (1999) compiled by John Raybould

I first met Friedrich A. Hayek in 1975, the year after he received the Nobel Prize in economics. I had had the exceptionally good fortune to be awarded summer fellowships for 1975 and 1977 at the Institute for Humane Studies when their offices were located in Menlo Park, California ...
Raybould often allows Hayek to tell his own story with extensive quotes in which Hayek recounts his life and ideas. The photographs ... include many covering Hayek's career that have never been published before. The volume is a fitting tribute to the memory of one of the towering intellectual figures of our time.

Book Review: J.-B. Say: An Economist in Troubled Times, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, May 1998
Review of J.-B. Say: An Economist in Troubled Times (1997), writings selected and translated by R. R. Palmer

Whatever economic freedom we enjoy in the world today is due, to a great extent, to the ideas and efforts of the classical liberals and economists of the first half of the 19th century. Inspired by the 18th-century writings of the French physiocrats and Scottish moral philosophers (David Hume and Adam Smith), they forcefully and insightfully demonstrated the errors and inefficiencies in mercantilism (the 18th-century system ...) ...
It's unfortunate that if Say were alive today, he could not be as praising of America as an example for the world as he could be 195 years ago.

Book Review: Problemas Economicos de Mexico, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Jan 1999
Review of Problemas Económicos de México (1998), translation of the 1943 English monograph "Mexico's Economic Problems" by Ludwig von Mises

In December 1941, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was invited by Luis Montes de Oca, a former director of the Mexican central bank, to deliver a series of lectures in Mexico during January and February 1942 ... At a time of international financial crisis, like the one during the last two years, when a growing number of governments are once more publicly advocating new controls on global capital movements, increased restrictions on private enterprise, and inflationary policies to artificially create employment, Mises's insightful analysis remains as timely as when he penned it ...

Related Topics: Free trade, Mexico, Ludwig von Mises

Reviews authored

The Future and Its Enemies, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, May 1999
Review of The Future and Its Enemies (1998) by Virginia Postrel

May 8, 1999, marks the hundredth birthday of Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek. One of Hayek's most important and lasting contributions to human understanding has been his development of a theory of spontaneous order ...
Postrel's book stands out ... because she covers the skeletal principles of liberty with the flesh and blood of history, everyday real life, and examples of things around us that we take for granted. It is one of those rare instances of a well-balanced blending of theory and practice that may yet make free men and free markets a reality in the next century.

Related Topics: F. A. Hayek, Learning, Virginia Postrel, Society

Books Authored

The Case for Free Trade and Open Immigration
by Richard Ebeling (editor), Jacob G. Hornberger (editor), The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1995
Collection of essays by Ebeling, Hornberger, Samuel Bostaph, Jim Bovard, W.M. Curtiss, Bettina Bien Greaves, William M. Law, Ludwig von Mises, Leonard Read, Lawrence W. Reed, Gregory F. Rehmke, Sheldon Richman and Ron K. Unz

Richard Ebeling

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