From time to time over the last thirty years, after I have talked or written about some new restriction on human liberty in the economic field, some new attack on private enterprise, I have been asked in person or received a letter asking, "What can I do" — to fight the inflationist or socialist trend? Other writers or lecturers, I find, are often asked the same question.
The answer is seldom an easy one. For it depends on the circumstances and ability of the questioner — who may be a businessman, a housewife, a student, informed or not, intelligent or not, articulate or not. And the answer must vary with these presumed circumstances.
The general answer is easier than the particular answer. So here I want to write about the task now confronting all libertarians considered collectively.
This task has become tremendous, and seems to grow greater every day. A few nations that have already gone completely Communist, like Soviet Russia and its satellites, try, as a result of sad experience, to draw back a little from complete centralization, and experiment with one or two quasi-capitalist techniques; but the world's prevailing drift — in more than 100 out of the 111 or so nations and mini-nations that are now members of the International Monetary Fund — is in the direction of increasing socialism and controls. Read more