From the category archives:

Great Economists

The Making of Modern Economics Wins 2009 Choice Award

January 22, 2010

My book The Making of Modern Economics has just won the Choice Book Award for Outstanding Academic Title for 2009. Choice is the reviewing journal for academic libraries. I was delighted by this surprise announcement, especially for a 2nd edition!
Some of the unique characteristics of The Making of Modern Economics:
1. A major critique of Karl Marx’s theories of [...]

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Five Americans Inducted Into Free Market Hall of Fame

July 17, 2009

Las Vegas, Nevada (July 11, 2009): Five American prominent writers and economists –Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, Rose Wilder Lane, H. L. Mencken, and Booker T. Washington — were inducted into the Free Market Hall of Fame at the Saturday night banquet at FreedomFest. This year’s conference attracted over 1,700 attendees.
Each year FreedomFest honors individuals who [...]

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Announcing the Free Market Hall of Fame!

September 15, 2007

Dear friends of liberty,

Here’s my latest idea:  The Free Market Hall of Fame is now up and running, and it’s creating a lot of debate!  We’re getting hundreds of new voters every day.  Lots of blogs are picking it up…..

Vote for your favorite free-market advocate (both living and dead) by going to www.freedomfest.com/halloffame.

Choose [...]

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Franklin and His Critics

December 30, 2006

Was Benjamin Franklin an indispensable public servant, or a cunning chameleon? A believer, or a heretic? A hard-headed entrepreneur, or an opportunistic privateer? A devoted family man, or a salacious womanizer? An important scientist and inventor, or a hoaxer and self-promoter? The first civilized American, or the most dangerous man in America? Read the article [...]

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A Tribute to Milton Friedman

November 28, 2006

I was at the New Orleans Investment Conference when I learned that free-market economist extraordinaire Milton Friedman, died on November 16. He was a dear friend. I was probably the last person to go out to lunch with Milton. We met at his favorite restaurant in San Francisco, where I showed him a picture of [...]

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It All Started with Adam

May 1, 2001

Ideas On Liberty
Economics on Trial
May 2001
by Mark Skousen
Adam Smith, that is. Having just completed writing a history of economics,1 I have concluded that, despite the protestations of Murray Rothbard and other detractors, the eighteenth-century moral philosopher and celebrated author of The Wealth of Nations deserves to be named the founding father of modern economics.
The [...]

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The Troubled Economics of Ayn Rand

January 1, 2001

Published in January, 2001, issue of Liberty Magazine:
THE TROUBLED ECONOMICS OF AYN RAND
by Mark Skousen
“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers…”
–Howard Roark, The Fountainhead (1994:710)
Ayn Rand, author of the celebrated Capitalism: The Unknown Idea, is honored almost universally as the fountainhead of market capitalism, an impassioned proponent of reason, individualism, and [...]

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Economics for the 21st Century

January 1, 2000

Economics on Trial
IDEAS ON LIBERTY
January 2000
Economics for the 21st Century
by Mark Skousen
“Nature [...]

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Keynesianism Defeated

October 9, 1997

WALL STREET JOURNAL — THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1997
By Mark Skousen
In 1992, Harvard Prof. Greg Mankiw was paid an unprecedented advance of $1.1 million to produce the “next Salmuelson”–a successor to Paul Samuelson’s “Economics,” the most successful economics textbook ever written, with more than four million copies sold in 15 editions and 41 foreign translations since [...]

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