Resources

Ayn Rand presents her moral and philosophical defense of capitalism in a 1967 lecture published by the Ayn Rand Institute.

Countries differ in freedom, legal security, openness, and the ability of people to act.

People choose, choices have costs, incentives matter, institutions matter, and evidence improves judgment.

Friedman’s core ideas can be approached through money, prices, choice, and limited government.

Markets coordinate human activity through choice, prices, and voluntary exchange.

So far, we’ve focused mostly on trade between people.  But what is capital?  It’s so easy, even a caveman could understand it. 

Economic life is shaped by choices, incentives, and feedback.

We might have more fun looking at this from a different angle.  YouTuber Andy George shows just what it would take to make a chicken sandwich from scratch.  Warning: you’ll need a chicken.  

Markets belong in a moral conversation about sympathy, self-command, and social cooperation.

A system can be morally better for ordinary people even when outcomes are unequal.

A moral case for markets can address fairness, business, consumerism, and poverty without rejecting freedom.

Johan Norberg explains the historical impact of capitalism and its relationship to consent and voluntary exchange.

Rights and voluntary agreement require legal limits on coercive power.

Profit and loss help show whether resources are being used well.

Choice in schooling follows from trusting families rather than bureaucratic assignment.

Every choice uses resources that could have served another purpose.

Capitalism protects the freedom to think, act, produce, and trade by voluntary agreement.

Trade lets people specialize, cooperate, and create more together than they could alone.

Modern economic freedom and growth helped billions escape extreme poverty.

Prices help buyers and sellers adjust to scarcity, demand, and cost.

Voluntary exchange respects dignity because it rests on persuasion and consent.

Friedman’s public work helped make economic freedom understandable to millions.

Markets channel self-interest into cooperation when rules protect exchange and property.

A moral defense of capitalism must defend individual rights and productive achievement.

A plain-language overview of how capitalism and socialism differ, starting from a single question: who decides? Covers control, voluntary versus mandatory participation, and a real-world example most people already use.

An FTCN short introducing Locke's case for natural rights and why that foundation still shapes modern debates about government.

A three-minute primer on what natural rights are and why political theorists treated them as pre-political.

After World War II, one nation was split into a market economy in the west and a centrally planned economy in the east. Same people, same history, same language, but within a generation the results were impossible to miss.

A small territory with few natural resources adopted a light-touch, market-based economy and became one of the wealthiest places on earth, while the centrally planned mainland stayed poor until it began adopting market reforms.

The opening segment of FTCN's Ideas That Changed the World feature on Smith and the birth of economics.

An FTCN conversation between Friedrich Hayek and Robert Bork on markets, law, and the limits of central planning.

Divided from a single nation in the mid-twentieth century, the market-based south became a wealthy, globally connected economy while the command-economy north fell into isolation and recurring hardship.

The first episode of FTCN's short-form series distilling Friedman's ideas into under two minutes.

The same goal, retirement income, approached two very different ways. One is voluntary and you own it; the other is mandatory and the government runs it. A concrete example of capitalism and socialism in everyday life.

A preview of FTCN's feature on Sowell, highlighting his decades of work on trade-offs, policy, and economic reality.

A short walkthrough of Smith's pin-factory example and why specialization multiplies what a single worker can produce.

A brief primer on how prices communicate scarcity and preference across millions of strangers without central coordination.

A walkthrough of Leonard Read's classic essay showing that no single person knows how to make a pencil — yet the market does.

Friedman's compact case that inflation is a monetary phenomenon: too much money chasing the same goods.

An hours-long lecture where Sowell walks through the key themes of Basic Economics for a general audience.

A short piece on Sowell's core insight: there are no solutions in economics, only trade-offs.

Locke's foundational text arguing that legitimate government rests on the consent of the governed and exists to protect natural rights.

The Stanford Encyclopedia's scholarly entry on Locke's political philosophy — consent, property, and the purpose of the state.

Smith's foundational work of economics, introducing the division of labor, the invisible hand, and the case for free commerce.

A concise introduction from the Adam Smith Institute covering Smith's key ideas and their modern relevance.

Hayek's signature essay on why knowledge is dispersed across individuals and prices are its best aggregator.

Leonard Read's 1958 essay, narrated by a pencil, showing that no single person can make one — yet the market produces billions.

Friedman's landmark book and PBS series making the case that economic freedom is the foundation of political freedom.

Sowell's plain-English introduction to economic reasoning — trade-offs, incentives, and the real-world consequences of policy.

Friedman explains how markets and voluntary exchange organize activity and enable people to improve their lives. He also explains the price system.

Collection of five episodes, each features an introduction by a well-known figure followed by a documentary.

Each episode of the original 1980 Free To Choose has been revised into a timeless, 2 minute video to introduce citizens to the phylosophy and the ideas of Milton Friedman

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Johan Norberg explores pioneering ecosystems that dramatically changed our world for the better.

Video traces Sowell’s journey from humble beginnings to the Hoover Institution, becoming one of our era’s most controversial economists, political philosophers, and prolific authors.

Friedman explains inflation, monetary policy, and the long-term effects of rising prices on economic stability and purchasing power. The episode connects inflation to government spending and money supply growth.

Friedman explores welfare systems, social programs, and the incentives created by government assistance. The episode discusses trade-offs between economic security and individual responsibility.

Building on ideas associated with Adam Smith and John Locke, Robert Lawson explains how economic freedom affects prosperity, innovation, poverty reduction, and quality of life across countries. The resource connects free-market institutions with real-world economic outcomes using data, charts, and international comparisons.

Hayek argues that centralized economic planning can gradually reduce individual and political freedom. The book explores the relationship between economic systems and liberty.

Bastiat explains that economic decisions create both visible and hidden consequences, and that good analysis requires considering long-term and indirect effects. The essay strongly influenced later thinkers focused on trade-offs and unintended consequences.

60-second animated explainer of Smith's invisible hand / self-regulating markets.

Hayek explains how free-market prices guide future economic activity.

Focus: Individual Rights

Focus: critical analasys of people's self-interest

Focus: how complex systems emerge without central planning

Focus: How policymakers battle inflation

Focus: unintended consequences - true cost of government intervention

Morality and Markets

Does United States Shift Economic Policy Too Quickly

The Future of Our Free Society

Ideas come from lived experiencec and observation