Forty years ago, I was worried. I was working at a free-market think tank at a major university, and I could see that Austrian economics was becoming less and less influential.
Who would speak for untrammeled freedom and capitalism? Sound money and no central banking? Would economics entirely betray its great advocates of liberty from Menger to Mises in favor of monsters like Keynes and Marx?
Was Hitler really “right wing”? The German-British publicist Sebastian Haffner, who wrote one of the most notable essays on Adolf Hitler, has pointed out that the only opposition which could really have become dangerous for Hitler came from the Right: “From its vantage, Hitler was on the left. This makes us stop and think. Hitler can certainly not be so readily sorted into the extreme right of the political spectrum as many people are in the habit of doing.”
The preeminence of the capitalist system consists in the fact that it is the only system of social cooperation and division of labor which makes it possible to apply a method of reckoning and computation in planning new projects and appraising the usefulness of the operation of those plants, farms, and workshops already working.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is nearing its second week. Vladimir Putin’s military continues its push west, with clear attempts to encircle Kyiv. To date, thankfully, America and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have held off pleas from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enforce a no-fly zone, which would risk the eruption of a new hot world war. So instead, along with supplying arms, intel, and—potentially—runways and planes to Ukraine, the focus of the West has been economic warfare.
Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been making headlines lately as the presidential race in the Philippines runs ever closer toward the 2022 elections in May. On the local level, at the time of this writing, he maintains a commanding lead in polls and opinion surveys despite opting out of public debates against other candidates. With overwhelming support behind him, he is currently poised to win the elections and become the next president after Rodrigo Duterte.
