The World Economic Forum (WEF) was founded fifty years ago. It has gained more and more prominence over the decades and has become one of the leading platforms of futuristic thinking and planning. As a meeting place of the global elite, the WEF brings together the leaders in business and politics along with a few selected intellectuals. The main thrust of the forum is global control. Free markets and individual choice do not stand as the top values, but state interventionism and collectivism.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

What happened to the trillions of dollars allocated for the CARES Act emergency lending facilities? In a statement he gave to the US Senate on Tuesday, and one of his last public statements for the year, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell honored Secretary Mnuchin’s request to terminate five of the lending programs, confirming:

There is something brewing in the nation’s capital, and it has been since Congress unconstitutionally gave power of the nation’s money supply to the Federal Reserve over a hundred years ago. While the tension has existed since, it’s a great opportunity to watch the friction unfold.

In his talk “Was Molinari a True Anarcho-Capitalist?” at last year’s Libertarian Scholars Conference, David M. Hart discussed Gustave de Molinari’s views towards anarcho-capitalism in fifteen texts. In doing so, Hart concluded we ought to revise Murray Rothbard’s assumption that Gustave de Molinari’s approach toward anarcho-capitalism weakened in the years nearing the 1900s.

Walter E. William, who many consider one of greatest modern economists, has just passed on at age 84. My connections with Walter go back to UCLA, where we both got our doctorates (though I was a bit later, and it was my misfortunate we did not overlap). Then I started writing popular articles in defense of Americans’ liberty not too long after he did, which made me very aware of his writing (in fact, I once jokingly told my wife that I didn’t like him because his articles were often too good a substitute for mine).

The passing of economist Walter Williams this week is a blow to anyone who cares about free markets and the negative effects of government intervention on human progress. Professor Williams articulated the role of markets, prices, and private property about as well as any economist outside of Ludwig von Mises or Murray Rothbard.

Usually, actions can be easily categorized as voluntary or coerced. You choose where you work. You are coerced into paying taxes. However, long-standing concepts such as “wage slavery” challenge this simple classification. While socialists use this term to justify greater force and coercion (akin to southern US slaveholders), there is nonetheless a kernel of truth here. The truth is this: the rules are rigged.