A new collection celebrates 24 ‘Unsung Heroes’ of free-market thinking, bringing their important ideas into the spotlight.

AIER readers are familiar with many of the big names in free-market scholarship and advocacy, such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, but many other important contributors remain obscure. Unsung Heroes of the Market: The 24 Underrated Economists You Need to Know, published by the Independent Institute, introduces 24 of them. Each chapter is carefully crafted by a writer or writers deeply familiar with its subject.

The book opens with a chapter about an individual we scarcely think of as an economist at all — Alexander Hamilton. In it, Richard Salsman challenges the view, held by some free-market stalwarts, that Alexander Hamilton advocated big government, central planning, and a burgeoning national debt.  On the contrary, Salsman writes, “Hamilton adopted [Adam] Smith’s critiques of mercantilism and physiocracy, but also rejected a few of Smith’s errors: his labor theory of value; his belief that some labor was non-productive, and his assertion that public debt always diminished prosperity.” While Hamilton is often attacked for his stance that public debt can be useful, Salsman points out that he also advocated for any public debt to be rapidly discharged. Hamilton also embraced the modern economic view that all economic sectors are valuable and that “a harmony of intersectoral interests is possible, preferable, and achievable.”

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