Dr. Alex Tokarev grew up in Bulgaria under socialism and received his Ph.D. in Economics from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Since 2000, Dr. Tokarev has taught over 2 dozen different courses across several colleges and universities and authored more than 300 publications in English and Bulgarian on classical liberal ideas. He has presented his research and given guest lectures at more than 50 forums, and has received scholarships from UCTM, SIUC, RCI/ISNIE, ISI, APEE, AFEE, the Acton Institute, and FMF.
Dr. Tokarev has organized and led international ventures to Bulgaria and Albania and internships for students at the Institute for Market Economics, the Institute for Radical Capitalism Atlas, and the Experts Club for Politics and Economics in Bulgaria. He edited the Bulgarian translation of Hoppe’s “Democracy: The God That Failed,” and has been interviewed by Bulgarian National TV, Bulgarian National Radio, Bulgaria On Air TV, Bloomberg Bulgaria, several Bulgarian magazines, The Academy on Capitalism, The Spark, and the Gwartney Institute.
Since 2012, Dr. Tokarev has been a part of Northwood’s faculty as an associate professor of free market economics and classical liberal philosophy. He is the founder and faculty advisor of Northwood University’s annual student-led Freedom Week. Additionally, Dr. Tokarev is a Mackinac Center for Public Policy Scholar and a Free Market Road Show speaker.
President Trump says Americans are being “ripped off” by credit card companies that charge interest rates of 30 percent or more. His proposed remedy—capping interest rates at 10 percent—is a reminder of what James Baldwin wrote in 1961: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty, knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” If...
Deirdre McCloskey has reshaped the study of economic history by insisting that ideas, not institutions or capital, made us rich. This prolific author is one of the rare figures in modern academia whose work crosses disciplines and defies labels. Drawn as a teenager to utopian and revolutionary theories, McCloskey grew up to realize that noble...
As in 1989, the world seems to be shifting beneath our feet. The second coming of Trump to the White House has rattled the global order. Whether it’s trade or defense, we observe a rapid realigning of strategic partnerships in all corners of the earth in the face of growing uncertainties. At the epicenter of...
Note: This piece co-authored by a Northwood University economics professor and alumna now working at Stossel TV, originally was posted by Learn Liberty, which is powered by Students for Liberty. Say what you want about Donald Trump: The man is creative. Really creative. Two of his recent proposals sound like the late-night infomercial between the...
Regardless which party controls the White House, one thing remains constant: U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East rests on the fiction that Saudi Arabia is a reliable partner, perhaps even some sort of indispensable friend of the West. The narrative is repeated by both diplomats, top military officials, and business executives. It’s no wonder...
“It is because every individual knows little … that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.” The Nobel Prize-winning Austrian-born economist and political philosopher Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) left a rich legacy of books and articles brimming with insights and...
Two out of five people view socialism positively. In 2025. In America! It’s as if the twentieth century never happened. The Holodomor? The Great Leap Forward? The Cultural Revolution? More than a hundred million victims in less than a hundred years? Gone from our collective memory. We’re told, again, that socialism is the answer to...
New York City, the bastion of global capitalism, is on the verge of electing its first socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Many of his socialist visions for the metropolis fail basic economics. Worst of all is his proposal to freeze the price of rent. It ignores decades of empirical evidence that rent control harms the very residents Mamdani...
Anew civil war is brewing. Texas is redistricting its electoral map to help a few Republican candidates in 2026. Democrats in California, New York, and Illinois are threatening retaliatory manipulations of their own. How does gerrymandering work? What shall we do about it? In our Republic, voters are supposed to choose their public servants. With...
President Donald Trump gave the Left one more reason to call him a “fascist” by sending the National Guard to Washington, D.C. Some of Trump’s own supporters are also expressing their frustration with the measures, pointing out that the American Republic was founded in principled opposition to the use of standing armies to police its...
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,...
Last year, we celebrated 50 years of Friedrich Hayek’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. We also marked 80 years since the great Austrian economist published his global bestseller, The Road to Serfdom. The book came out during the rise of Clement Atlee in the United Kingdom and of Juan Peron in Argentina. Just as...
The first federal minimum wage bill was signed into law during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term as U.S. President. The Great Depression gave Washington a pretext to enact sweeping economic restrictions. So, by 1938, Congress had made it illegal for employees to charge less than 25 cents per hour for their labor services. Today’s inflation-adjusted...
Money was the tool that built our civilization. But, in the hands of the government, it can become a weapon of mass destruction. Let’s start with a simple explanation of how money greases the wheels of the economy: Step 1: Tom has $1 in the bank. Dick knits a scarf. Harry borrows $1 to buy...