Saturday, October 11, 2025

Who Controls the Public Mind? | ZeroHedge

During a crisis, from a career point of view, it is always better to stay silent. To speak out risks everything. It requires more than courage. It requires a willingness to put it all on the line to see one's ideas realized in the real world. It's also when intellectuals can have their greatest impact on the world. And yet, few do it. Few stand up when they are most needed.

One of my favorite thinkers from this entire period is F.A. Hayek, a monetary economist at the University of Vienna who left (as many did) to take residence in London at the London School of Economics. There he quickly established himself as the alternative to John Maynard Keynes, whose new theories contradicted the whole of classical economics.

Keynes was riding high as the guru of fascistic experiments the world over, even to the point of writing an introduction to the German edition of his book in 1936 when the Nazis were firmly in power. He celebrated the regime and its potential.

In contrast, Hayek represented old-world liberalism. Before his move to London, Hayek had been hard at work on theoretical problems involving capital structures, interest rate signaling issues, pricing as an information tool, the unworkability of socialism, and other such matters. His work in this area ultimately won him the Nobel Prize in 1974.

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