John Hood put his knowledge of music and dance to creative use in the
June issue of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education.
He was rewarded with a beautiful cover illustration to accompany his
thought-provoking piece, “Hayek, Strauss, and the Political Waltz.” In
it, Hood used the history of the waltz – including efforts by
politicians to prohibit it and then regulate it –as an analogy to
politics and economics. He also noted that Harvard Professor Ronald
Heifetz has written about how important it is for leaders to take a
long view and, in essence, leave the dance floor for the balcony when
making policy. “I see the Austrian analysis of political, economic, and
social phenomena as the economic equivalent of getting up into the
balcony,” Hood explained. “It teaches us to look for the spontaneous,
undesigned social patterns that emerge from countless individual
actions and transactions.”