Last night in the heartland town of Carmel, Ind., we were pleased to present the Liberty Fund Prize for Advancing Economic Freedom. The winners were former Senator Phil Gramm and economist Donald Boudreaux, who will split the $100,000 prize. The award ceremony was held in coincidence with an Indianapolis meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, founded in 1947 by Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and other bright lights of the economic freedom movement.

My comments on the award to Gramm and Boudreaux:

The American experience has been one long demonstration of the power and efficacy of free markets. Success has bred one success after another. Yet here we find ourselves on our 250th birthday knocked back on our heels by what Professor Hayek would have called “the Socialists of all parties.” How could that possibly have happened? Part of the problem, surely, is rhetorical. While the friends of freedom are obliged to make complex and even counterintuitive arguments — most famously, that the........

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