I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

254 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
my research and teaching were as a result quite different from those of other agricultural
policy economists.
Rich Wilcke, whom I did not know, read my article, “The Right to Food,” in The
Freeman and contacted me in 1977 or 1978. He had plans to form an Institute for the Study
of Market Agriculture (ISMA)—as an institution independent of the existing agricultural
economics establishment—which would analyze agricultural policy from a free market
perspective. He asked me to participate in ISMA, even though I was employed in the Land
Grant University–USDA complex that is responsible for the development, administration,
and analysis of the maze of regulations affecting the production and marketing of agricultural
products in the United States. Before he could launch his proposed Institute, however,
Rich became the president of a new business organization: the Council for a Competitive
Economy. The Council’s purpose was similar to that of Rich’s proposed free market Institute
in agriculture, but with a much broader scope: its purpose was to promote and extend
market, rather than political, forces throughout the economy.
The Council held The National Conference on Economic Freedom in 1981. Discussion
panels were held in a number of areas, including agriculture, health care, energy & resources,
transportation, finance, and capital formation, productivity & taxes. Rich invited me to
participate as a member of a panel on agriculture—to explain why economic freedom in
this field is possible from a theoretical standpoint.
One can never predict what the outcome of participating in such events might be.
Several years after the economic freedom conference, I received a call from John Fund, then
an editorial page editor for the Wall Street Journal. John, as a college student, had heard my
presentation on “Regulation versus the Market in U. S. Agriculture” at this Economic
Freedom Conference. He proposed an idea for an op-ed piece for his newspaper on how
government programs in agriculture are similar in vigor and persistence to the kudzu plant.
The Wall Street Journal published the piece, “Kudzu: The Government Gift That Keeps on
Growing,” four years after John heard my presentation. Despite the fact that our collaboration
in his ISMA dream was short lived, Rich has been a source of encouragement to me
over the years in “going against the grain in agricultural economics.”
Lawrence Reed invited me to participate in a “Freedom in Third Century in America”
seminar at Northwood Institute in Midland, Michigan in June 1982. Supply-side economics,
much in discussion at that time in the first Reagan administration, was the focus of
my presentation. Larry had me billed on the program as an author of articles on free markets
and Austrian economics. This was, I think, the first time that I had been formally identified
with the discipline of Austrian economics. Larry’s designation was based on his assessment
of articles that I had published in various market-oriented publications, including the
The Freeman, The Intercollegiate Review, and Reason magazine. Larry, a dynamic speaker
and energetic proponent of the free market, later formed The Mackinac Center for Public
Policy and is currently president of the Foundation for Economic Education.
Israel Kirzner’s encouragement (and his work on the entrepreneurial market process)
facilitated my efforts in Austrian economics. In 1981, Israel and his colleagues at New York
University organized a conference to mark the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Ludwig von Mises and invited me to participate as a discussant of Gerald O’Driscoll’s paper