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Vervon Orval Watts

Vernon Orval Watts was one of the leading free-market economists of the World War II and postwar eras. Watts was hired by Leonard Read in 1939 to be the economist for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, of which Leonard was executive director. Watts thereby became the first full-time economist to be employed by a chamber of commerce in the United States. Read later made Watts the leading economist at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). See Murray Rothbard’s memorial in Making Economic Sense.

Articles

Government Is Political

02/10/2010 Mises Daily Vervon Orval Watts

In order to answer these questions, we must realize that government is an agency for coercion, and we should understand how man reacts to coercion or in the absence of coercion.

Keynesianism and Socialism

01/05/2010 Mises Daily Vervon Orval Watts

In general, moreover, Keynesian proposals for "compensatory" policies follow Marxian socialism in seeking to force individuals to obey the rule, "From everyone according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs." Arguments and theories used to support these proposals are essentially Marxian.

Publications

Away From Freedom

03/05/1952 Vervon Orval Watts

Murray Rothbard writes the introduction to the reprint of this 1952 gem. It is by V. Orval Watts, one of the leading anti-Keynesians of his time. He is writing during the great entrenchment of the Keynesian perspective within the economics profession

Do We Want Free Enterprise?

03/05/1944 Vervon Orval Watts

The very idea of “educating the masses” is inconsistent with the ideals of freedom and individualism to which we give lip service. Who are “the masses”? Can the term be more appropriately applied to others than to ourselves? We are all individuals

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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

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