This week, the Manhattan Institute hosted a banquet in New York City in honor of John Taylor, the distinguished economist from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who will receive this year’s Hayek Book Prize. Taylor’s prize-winning book “First Principles: Five Keys to Restoring America’s Prosperity” offers a timely antidote to the gloom about the nation’s future that has overtaken too many of our intellectuals. Taylor’s book reminds us that our current economic difficulties are not rooted in our people, institutions or culture but are due mainly to failures in national policy. The path to growth and prosperity, he argues, will be found in a return to the traditional American principles of individual freedom, limited government and stable economic policy.
The Hayek Prize, which carries an award of $50,000, is one of the country’s most significant book awards. It was established by the Manhattan Institute to recognize a work published within the previous two years that best reflects F.A. Hayek’s vision of personal liberty and economic freedom. Hayek was a seminal figure in the postwar revival of classical liberalism, and a key figure in the founding of the Manhattan Institute. The Hayek Prize was established to recognize authors who demonstrate how those principles should be applied to contemporary problems.
