Free Republic

This year rewards theorists of creative destruction. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics honors three economists whose work embodies an idea first coined by Joseph Schumpeter: creative destruction. Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt have each advanced our understanding of how technological progress drives human prosperity. As Schumpeter described, every technological advance has two faces. It destroys by rendering old methods obsolete, yet it creates by flooding the market with new goods and more efficient ways of meeting human needs.The Nobel Committee’s focus on creative destruction feels particularly relevant today, in an era dominated by fears over artificial intelligence....

Earlier today, George Soros, the chair and founder of the Open Society Foundations, was presented with the globalist (in the worst sense of the term) Joseph A. Schumpeter Award for innovative achievements in the field of business, economics, or economic policy, at a ceremony at the National Bank of Austria, in Vienna.

It's not easy to explain the anti-globalization movement's attraction or its successes. Much of the writing on the movement's growth, ideology, and influence veers into impenetrable thickets of post-modern theory (e.g., Naomi Klein's indigestible No Logo), so non-stoned readers often find it tough sledding, and give up. But that may be an altogether unfortunate response. One reason for the anti-globalizers' effectiveness is that corporations often simply roll over in the face of activists' onslaught. For example, this past January, Citigroup, the global financial powerhouse, surrendered to a four-year campaign by the anti-globalization Rainforest Action Network (RAN). This long-running protest included...