Leland B. Yeager

Leland Yeager is Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Auburn University.

More than 30 years ago in a path-breaking article, Leland Yeager ... noted that "many definitions of money can be self-consistent. But no mere definition should deter us, when we are trying to understand the flow of spending in the economy, from focusing attention on the narrow category of assets that actually get spent. ... Certain assets do and others do not circulate as media of exchange. ... The medium of exchange can 'burn holes in pockets' in a way that near moneys do not. ... These are observed facts, or inferences from facts, not mere a priori truths or tautologies."

Ludwig von Mises was the leading Austrian economist of his generation. He received several honorary doctorates and the distinction of a ceremonial 50th-anniversary renewal of his earned doctorate. The same occasion produced a Festschrift in his honor ... Mises deserves honor for his courage, even at heavy cost to his own career, in pursuing research, teaching, and writing with uncompromising concern that correct understanding should prevail in the long run. Although he did not live to fully see the outcome of his efforts, he and his ideas are beginning to win the recognition they deserve.

Some conservatives and classical liberals credit features of Western society, including individualism, capitalism, and liberal democracy, to the Judeo-Christian belief in a personal god. They see religion as essential to morality ... Overman simply makes these assertions; he does not argue for them ... As I hope I have shown, mine is not a smart-alecky atheism. I am no "evangelical atheist" (as I once heard someone described); instead I am a "reverent atheist." I have deep reverence for the immensity and wonders of the universe, including the mystery of the apparently deliberately fine-tuned constants of nature.

I don't see anything peculiar about economists being interested in ethics. The two fields overlap. Both are concerned with how people can function together in society without central direction. Somehow, they pursue their own interests and serve those of others at the same time. ... There is, of course, a question of how far one can go with taxation before one ruins the economy, and I don't know the answer. But social democracy still qualifies as a market. I don't think we are faced with an all or nothing choice about laissez-faire economics.