In coming days, I will have a piece about Vernon L. Smith, the economist. Not just any economist: one of the leading economists of our time, and a persistent advocate of freedom. I have done a podcast with him, a Q&A, here. Professor Smith was born in Wichita, Kan., on New Year’s Day 1927. He is a classical liberal, in the mold of an earlier Smith — Adam, in the 18th century. Vernon Smith was not always this way, however: In 1948, he cast his presidential ballot for Norman Thomas, the Socialist nominee. (He still admires Thomas, economics aside, and many others do as well — people of varying political and philosophical stripes.) In 2002, Smith won the Nobel Memorial Prize, sharing it with Daniel Kahneman.
Anyway, I will have a piece on all this. But if you would like to hear Professor Smith in a podcast — I do recommend our Q&A. You will hear an authentic voice from the plains of Kansas. Vernon Smith has lived all over these United States: from Boston to L.A. But his speech has never left home.