In the red corner,
wearing government approved trunks, the master of economic disaster, the leader
of fiscal futility, John Maynard Keynes.

His much ignored
opponent, in the black corner, wearing freedom trunks, the prophet of profit
and loss, Friedrich Hayek.

If only the debate over economics were as simple as a boxing
match that most people could ignore without bearing the burden of ignorance.
That’s not the case, however.

Keynes and Hayek represent two fundamentally different views
on economics, with the Keynesian view of spend, spend, spend even when you
don’t have the money being the one adopted by most—if not all— modern day
governments, including that of the United States.

Every year in the United States, regardless of which party
controls Congress, regardless of which party the president belongs to, the debt
continues to increase.

When John Kennedy took office the national debt was $290
billion. The Johnson administration grew the debt to $345 billion. At the end
of the Nixon/Ford terms in office, the debt was $493 billion.

When Ronald Reagan took office the debt was $930 billion,
but when the great communicator left office the debt was more than $2.6
trillion.

By the end of fiscal year 2007, George W. Bush had increased
the debt from $5.8 trillion to $8.97 trillion. The debt now exceeds $14
trillion.

That debt is a burden on the people of the United States, a
burden on the children and the as yet unborn.

Keynesian economics and the policies that support the
concept are a failing proposition that depletes wealth through inflation and
taxation, by taxing and spending or borrowing and spending. They do nothing but
strengthen a government’s grip on its people, siphoning prosperity and stealing
liberties. Centralized power is contrary to a robust and dynamic economy.

Hayek, by contrast, was an advocate of the free market. His
classic The Road to Serfdom—published
in 1944— was an attack on centralized government and social planning.

As Thomas J. DiLorenzo wrote recently in a piece for the
Ludwig von Mises Institute:

“Hayek's motivation for writing The Road to
Serfdom was the shocking speed at which so many Europeans — especially in
Germany — had simply forgotten all that they had learned over the centuries
about the virtues of a free society, the need for limitations on government
power, the dangers of centralized power, and the workings of capitalism as a
worldwide network of mutually advantageous exchange. It only took a couple of
decades of socialistic sloganeering to persuade Germans to abandon their
classical-liberal roots and embrace Big Government of the worst sort.”

Hayek’s work, ignored by politicians as Keynesians continue
to ridicule it, is getting a second life in the public mind, however. A few
weeks ago it was the number one seller on Amazon.com. Not bad for a 66-year-old
book that advocates a minority opinion—a libertarian opinion—from that of
officialdom.

It is the increased interest in Hayek that we find
interesting and heartening. It coincides with the increasing interest in
liberty and libertarian ideas. U.S. Rep Ron Paul from Texas, though a
Republican, is a solid small libertarian and his ideas are being met with
increased interest. Consider even U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has joined with the
congressman in a bid to get the Federal Reserve audited.

Consider further that even the word libertarian is getting
more use in the media. John Stossel and Judge Andrew Napolitano have their own
TV shows that bring libertarian ideas to the forefront of discussion and even
former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough dedicated a segment of his “Morning Joe”
program to libertarian ideas on June 30.

We hope the trend continues with libertarian thought
included in more TV news and commentary programs, so that the political
discussion becomes more realistic. The left/right only debate is false. There
is more than just a left wing or a right wing. There is more to economic
thought than just Keynesian economics.

Let’s hope the intellectual and philosophical heirs to Hayek
and other free market thinkers get a chance to verbally duke it out with the
statists in the mainstream media.