What explains the simultaneous critiques of economic theory and liberalism during the 1930s? Early neoclassical economists had a common understanding of the proper institutional context under-girding a liberal market order. From the marginal revolution emerged a growing emphasis on analyzing...

Liberalism correctly understood is little more than the persistent and consistent applications of the principles of economics of the affairs of men be they domestic or international. These include mutually beneficial exchange, the absence of political privilege, and toleration. The institutional...

This paper argues that liberty and progress arose due to the generalized increasing returns to economic activity. These increasing returns follow from the gradual, cumulative process of institutionalizing liberties. As a society adopts an institutional framework from accumulated liberties, there...

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom is often read as a policy book and a political tract for its time. It is also often read as little more than a “slippery slope” argument, leading inevitably down a road from a free society to the gulag. In this paper, we counter the claim that The Road to Serfdom...