IDEAS ON LIBERTY

Essays in Honor of
Paul L. Poirot

PAUL L. POIROT

IDEAS ON LIBERTY

Essays in Honor of
Paul L. Poirot

Thanks to Gary North,
the man responsible for this volume.

Foreword Copyright © 2012 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute
Copyright © 1987 by the Foundation for Economic Education

Reprinted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute
518 West Magnolia Avenue
Auburn, Alabama 36832
mises.org

ISBN: 978-1-61016-198-5

DR. PAUL L. POIROT died at the age of ninety in 2006, and with his passing I lost one of my closest and best friends. Paul Poirot is remembered by most people as the thirty-year editor of The Freeman, the monthly journal published by the Foundation for Economic Education since 1956. But Paul Poirot was much more than just an editor to those of us who worked closely with him over the decades.

PAUL L. POIROT was born in Illinois farm country and received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture from The University of Illinois in 1936. He went on to Cornell in Ithaca, New York, and received his Ph.D. in agricultural economics in 1940. Following stints at the Office of Price Administration and as an economist at a feed, seed, and fertilizer cooperative in Ithaca, he joined the staff of FEE in 1949.

BY ROBERT G. ANDERSON

AN EXPANDING community of individuals, given adequate time and proper values, will eventually become a civilization. The ultimate structure of these civilizations, however, can never be known because a multitude of forces will interact in their development. There is no way that the process which brought them into existence can ever be identified or evaluated in advance.

BY HOWARD BAETJER JR.

BEHAVING in a self-interested manner does not mean disregarding others. On the contrary, because we are social beings who depend on, and often care deeply about many others around us, a sound attention to our self-interest must include a great deal of concern for others.

BY MELVIN D. BARGER