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.

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Government Is Political

Free MarketsInterventionismOther Schools of ThoughtPolitical Theory

02/10/2010Mises Daily ArticlesVervon 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.

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Keynesianism and Socialism

Global EconomyWorld HistoryInterventionismOther Schools of Thought

01/05/2010Mises Daily ArticlesVervon 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...