The death of former mainland Chinese premier Zhu Rongji on August 12 has renewed discussion of his economic legacy. Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003 after previously overseeing much of mainland China’s economic policy as vice premier, was one of the principal architects of the market-oriented reforms of the 1990s. He restructured state-owned enterprises, strengthened the central government’s fiscal capacity, promoted housing reform, and used mainland China’s accession to the World Trade Organization as a means of exposing domestic firms to greater competition.
Continue readingMilton Friedman
Economic Freedom, LGBTI Rights, and the Price of Pride
One week from today, I will be in Amsterdam to take part in The Price of Pride: Economic Freedom & Digital Rights, an event organized by the European Liberal Forum in cooperation with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom Europe and Rainbow Platform, on the fringes of EuroPride and WorldPride Amsterdam. The event will bring together researchers, activists, policymakers, and content creators to discuss a question that is often fragmented across different academic and political debates: how do economic freedom, digital rights, personal liberty, and human dignity interact in the lives of LGBTI people?
Continue readingRemembering Margaret Thatcher: Thirteen Years On
Thirteen years have passed since the death of Margaret Thatcher. Commemorations of political leaders often drift into ritual. Yet Thatcher’s legacy cannot be understood in isolation, nor can it be reduced to domestic policy debates within the United Kingdom. Her historical significance lies in a broader constellation of figures—Ronald Reagan, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Pope John Paul II—who, across different domains, contributed to the intellectual, political, and spiritual defeat of communism in the late twentieth century.
This was not a coincidence of personalities. It was a convergence of ideas, institutions, and moral conviction.
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