Raleigh Economics Club

John Hood

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. · Cantina 18, Raleigh, NC

Author, commentator, and one of North Carolina’s leading voices on economics and public policy. President of the John William Pope Foundation.

Topic: To be announced.

Michael Munger

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. · Cantina 18, Raleigh, NC

Professor of Political Science and Economics at Duke University. Leading public intellectual on markets, public choice, and political economy.

Topic: To be announced.

John Hood

Co-Founder & Steering Committee

Author, commentator, and one of North Carolina’s leading voices on economics, public policy, and civic life. President of the John William Pope Foundation.

Michael Munger

Co-Founder & Steering Committee

Professor of Political Science and Economics at Duke University and a leading public intellectual on markets and public choice.

Jenna Robinson

Co-Founder & Steering Committee

Education leader and advocate for intellectual inquiry, institutional excellence, and civic understanding. President of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

Ted Hicks

Co-Founder & Steering Committee

Business leader and civic-minded supporter of economic freedom, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.

Richard Salsman

Co-Founder & Steering Committee

Economist, author, and scholar of capitalism, constitutionalism, and political economy. President of InterMarket Forecasting, Inc.

Brad Taylor

Founder & President

Attorney, entrepreneur, and civic organizer. Licensed to practice law in California and the District of Columbia. CEO of Xona Microfluidics, Inc., a North Carolina corporation developing advanced microfluidic platforms for neuroscience research. Past Director of AIER's Bastiat Society of Raleigh and Harwood Salons Raleigh. Committed to informed discussion about liberty, individual responsibility, free enterprise, and constitutional government.

“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all.”

The Constitution remains the foundation of ordered liberty and self-government.

“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”

A republic depends upon informed citizens capable of preserving liberty.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

The free society rewards courage, effort, and personal responsibility — not the timid observer.

“In the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional crises which call for the heroic virtues.”

Prosperity depends upon the character and responsibility of ordinary citizens.

“Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. Duty is not collective; it is personal.”

Free societies begin with respect for individual rights and responsibilities.

“To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race. The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom.”

Constitutional government remains one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Free exchange transforms individual initiative into widespread prosperity.

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”

Bastiat warned that government can become an instrument by which some seek benefits at the expense of others.

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Hayek reminds us that markets coordinate dispersed knowledge better than centralized planners can.

“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”

Freedom is the most precious and perishable of political inheritances.

“There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”

The preservation of liberty requires attention to the proper limits of governmental power.

William W. Nelson

Partner

Smith Anderson
Raleigh, North Carolina

For his expert counsel and generous support in initiating the legal organization of the Raleigh Economics Club as a North Carolina nonprofit.

John Hahn

Special Counsel

Mayer Brown
Raleigh & Washington, D.C.

For his counsel and generous support in initiating the legal organization of the Raleigh Economics Club as a North Carolina nonprofit.

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