The quote I have included in the following paragraph is from the writings of Friedrich A. Hayek who is an economist in the Austrian School of Economics. Mr. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974 and is the author of many books on economics, politics, philosophy, and the social sciences. His most famous book is “The Road to Serfdom,” which I highly recommend as the best introduction to Mr. Hayek’s thinking. Two other books worth reading are “The Fatal Conceit” and “The Constitution of Liberty.” These are not easy reads but they are both books of value for these troubling times.
“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. … Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of (classical) liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.”—F.A. Hayek, The Intellectuals and Socialism (1949)
I have provided this longish quote because I believe it embodies the critical challenge that America faces in the 21st Century. I agree with Mr. Hayek that this challenge will require our personal courage and our best thinking to once again address the “building of a free society.”
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Cordial regards,
Andrew J. Guinossol