Cato Institue Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty Winner: Mao Yushi

My congratulations to Chinese economist Mao Yushi, and the politically independent Cato Institute. Milton Friedman’s spirit lives.

From the Cato Institute:

The Cato Institute has announced that Mao Yushi, one of China’s most outspoken and influential activists for individual rights and free markets, has been named the 2012 winner of the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.

Mao, an 83-year-old economist, is a well-known advocate for an open and transparent political system and is one of the pioneers of the movement in China for civil society and freedom. Before economic reform began in China in 1978, he had been an engineer and during his lifetime has faced severe punishment, exile, and near starvation for remarks critical of a command-based economy and society. During the Cultural Revolution, he and his family were deprived of all of their property, and in 2011 he angered some in China with his article “Returning Mao Zedong to Human Form,” which boldly calculated the human cost of Mao’s brutal Communist policies from 1949 to 1976. The article led to calls for his prosecution and execution, with 50,000 left-faction members signing a petition that called for his imprisonment on charges of treason. Immediately following the article’s appearance he had to be surrounded by students to protect him from physical attack from zealots, while the government remained silent and neutral.

Read more about Chinese economist, Mao Yushi and the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty by clicking here.