VSP Prize

Are the Poor getting poorer because the Rich are getting richer? Abdulganiyy Olanrewaju   ABSTRACT Public debates about inequality often rest on an intuitive but flawed assumption: that wealth in society resembles a fixed pie. From this view, when the rich gain, the poor must inevitably lose. Yet economic history, empirical evidence, and the logic […]

Why free markets do not impoverish the poor Valeria Lucia Rios Sánchez Abstract The following essay analyzes one of the most controversial debates: the idea that the rich become richer at the expense of the poor. Drawing on the contributions of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Israel Kirzner, the essay refutes this notion by […]

Who exploits whom? Spain’s welfare state and the return of zero-sum politics Andrés Ruiz Benito ABSTRACT Public debate increasingly frames inequality as a zero-sum process: “the poor get poorer because the rich get richer”. Proper economic theory rejects this inference for competitive markets, where voluntary exchange and entrepreneurship can expand output and allow gains to […]

Rule of law: The universal unwritten constitution Martin van Staden ABSTRACT Constitutionalism – one of classical liberalism’s significant legacies in jurisprudence – is the idea that the state must be subject to law; in particular, that state power must be subject to legal limitation. Every written constitutional instrument in the world differs on the scope […]