Your Free-Market Connector

The Foundational Role of Private Property

The Foundational Role of Private Property

There is growing interest in socialist ideas, especially among college-age Americans. To be precise, 62% of young Americans between 18 and 29 years old have a favorable view of socialism, according to a 2025 survey by Cato Institute and YouGov. This makes Friedrich A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, a critique of the dangers of...

By Daniel J. Smith, Dr. Gabriel Benzecry

Free Enterprise Deserves Champions; Become One

Free Enterprise Deserves Champions; Become One

This Independence Day, America’s Free Enterprise University marked an exciting milestone: Learners who complete The Philosophy of Free Enterprise, Northwood’s complimentary, self-paced online course, can now earn a Certificate of Completion. Launched in 2022, the course now offers 18 engaging lessons featuring easily digestible lectures about timeless free-market concepts, including the importance of limited government,...

By Kate Hessling

2025 Freedom Seminar to Explore Road to Serfdom and Path to Freedom

2025 Freedom Seminar to Explore Road to Serfdom and Path to Freedom

The 2025 Northwood University Freedom Seminar will survey the two alternative paths that humanity tried over the past century: the road to serfdom and the road to freedom. The first was examined by the Austrian economist F. A. Hayek, who chose it as a title to a book that exposed the economic bankruptcy, political dangers,...

By Dr. Dale Matcheck, Dr. Alex Tokarev

Doing Good by Doing Well

Doing Good by Doing Well

As a business professor, I strive to teach sound principles and practices, focusing on the benefits of productivity and value creation. I want my students pursuing business careers to be proud of their chosen profession. While business ethics is a topic worthy of classroom coverage and discussion, I do not view my role as one...

By Kimberlee Josephson

One Man’s Poison Is Another Man’s Cure

One Man’s Poison Is Another Man’s Cure

Tim Friede let venomous snakes bite him roughly 200 times, suffering anaphylactic shocks, and spending four days hospitalized in a coma. But this wasn’t a suicide attempt. He was seeking immunity to all snake venom, so that his blood could be used to create a universal antitoxin. The Centivax startup reports promising results from an...

By Arthur Diamond

Pursuit of Happiness: The Growth of a Radical Idea

Pursuit of Happiness: The Growth of a Radical Idea

The idea that people have an unalienable right to pursue their own happiness is a very radical idea. Prior to the eighteenth century, almost no one in the world believed it. Even today, only a small sliver of humankind agrees with it. Equally radical is the idea that the only purpose of government is to...

By John C. Goodman

Sneaking Snacks into Movies and the Mystery of Social Order

Sneaking Snacks into Movies and the Mystery of Social Order

Last month, like many, I went to see the newly released Superman movie by James Gunn. As a kid, I loved the 1978 Superman film with Christopher Reeve and the scene when he takes Lois Lane for an evening flight is one of my favorites. Margot Kidder portrayed Lane as smart and quirky — and...

By Kimberlee Josephson

The Collapse of Britain’s National Health Service

The Collapse of Britain’s National Health Service

It’s a poorly-kept secret that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has faced crisis after crisis. But the latest scandal over 3 million “unseen patients” may be its worst yet. In fact, this omnicrisis is worsened by the fact that barely anyone is speaking about it. Throughout the 2000s, headlines warned of an overwhelmed and underfunded...

By Dr. Jake Scott

Northwood University Freedom Seminar to Explore Road to Serfdom, Path to Freedom

Northwood University Freedom Seminar to Explore Road to Serfdom, Path to Freedom

Northwood University will launch its 2025 Freedom Seminar on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, with a keynote address by Professor Daniel J. Smith, a Northwood alumnus and Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at Middle Tennessee State University. Smith will explore the continuing relevance of Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek’s critique of socialism and its application...

By Kate Hessling

Truth, Justice, and the New Superman

Truth, Justice, and the New Superman

After 47 years of Superman movies, James Gunn’s 2025 film offers a poignant take on the values Superman has always embodied: truth, justice, and the American Way. Through his origin story as an alien adopted and raised in Kansas, Superman symbolizes the hope and idealism that define the American Dream: that through hard work and...

By Caitlin Peters

New Study: California’s $20 Minimum Wage Killed 18,000 Restaurant Jobs

New Study: California’s $20 Minimum Wage Killed 18,000 Restaurant Jobs

erhaps the greatest example that good policymaking intentions go awry is the minimum wage. Proponents of increasing the minimum wage argue that doing so will help the poor. If we could snap our fingers and make the poor suddenly rich, there would be no reason to object. Unfortunately, in a world of scarce resources, this...

By Peter Jacobsen

China’s AI Hype Echoes Mao’s ‘Satellite’ Era

China’s AI Hype Echoes Mao’s ‘Satellite’ Era

Industrial researchers are sounding the alarm as thousands of AI companies are being eliminated in the wake of the first wave of AI fever sparked by OpenAI. At the same time, however, prominent tech leaders and Silicon Valley CEOs such as Jensen Huang continue to promote the narrative of China’s technological leadership in AI. While...

By Ma Junjie

Blue States’ High Tax State-of-Mind

Blue States’ High Tax State-of-Mind

While the Big Beautiful budget bill recently enacted into law has a multiplicity of good, bad, and benign features, the law’s biggest and most beautiful feature is the continuation of the soon-to-expire 2017 income tax reduction enacted in Donald Trump’s first term. Although much of the American press has characterized this as a big gift...

By Richard K. Vedder, Stephen J. Moore

What’s Wrong With Boeing?

What’s Wrong With Boeing?

Boeing is struggling. The most recent round of bad news to hit the manufacturer came when, after Boeing’s project to build the next Air Force One was delayed again, this time until 2029, President Trump announced he would instead accept a jet gifted from the Qatari royal family. While the legality of that move has...

By Connor O’Keeffe