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Benjamin A Rogge - late Distinguished Professor of Political Economy at Wabash College - was a representative of that most unusual species: economists who speak and write in clear English. He forsakes professional jargon for clarity and logic - and can even be downright funny. The nineteen essays in this volume explore the philosophy of freedom, the nature of economics, the business system, labour markets, money and inflation, the problems of cities, education, and what must be done to ensure the survival of free institutions and capitalism.

Part II

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM

Introduction

In this section I present those papers in which I have attempted to set forth exactly what I stand for and why. The first paper, "The Case for Economic Freedom," was given as a speech on numerous occasions (particularly at seminars organized by the Foundation for Economic Education at Irvington, New York) before being put down on paper. The second paper was originally prepared for an appearance before the students and faculty of the college where I teach, Wabash College, and was my attempt to tell them the kind of person (in Rogge) they were harboring in their midst. "Who's to Blame" was presented to an even earlier convocation at Wabash College, at a time when I was serving as Dean of the College. It is presented as a further development of the idea of personal responsibility discussed in the first two papers of this section. "Paradise in Posey County" was another of my chapel messages to young men; in it I explore (and criticize) the idea of Utopia as displayed in two famous experiments in communal living in Indiana."

Benjamin A. Rogge

Benjamin A. Rogge (1920–1980) was an American economist, college administrator, and libertarian writer, speaker and foundation advisor. Rogge co-authored an economics principles textbook with John Van Sickle. One strength of the text is the account that it gives of Joseph Schumpeter's process of creative destruction. Rogge helped organize a series of lectures by Milton Friedman at Wabash that were eventually developed into Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom book. Much later, Rogge participated in a brainstorming session for Friedman's Free to Choose television series. 

Liberty Fund was founded with money from Pierre Goodrich, who sought advice from Rogge during the Fund's early years. Rogge also was a frequent presenter at the seminars of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). FEE's founder, Leonard Read, thought of Rogge as Read's eventual successor, an outcome prevented by Read outliving Rogge. An extended (but somewhat grainy) video clip of a Rogge FEE lecture on "Competition and Monopoly" illustrates the dry wit that made him a popular speaker.

Rogge helped produce, and narrated, a documentary on Adam Smith that was funded by Liberty Fund. A collection of Rogge's speeches, often on topics in economics or education, was published under the title Can Capitalism Survive?

Wabash College, where he taught for many years, established a speaker series in his honor. Rogge's archives are mainly housed at the Hoover Institute on the campus of Stanford University. A posthumous collection of Rogge's speeches