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Dear John,
Atlas Network founder Sir Antony Fisher and his neighbor, legendary economist Milton Friedman, warned of the dangers of runaway government expenditures, unchecked money printing, and destructive price control policies.
Heeding these warnings, the liberty movement has long worked to prevent governments from using central banks to manipulate the monetary supply and micromanage the economy.
Unfortunately, this can be a difficult task.
But our friends at Lebanese Institute for Market Studies (LIMS) are reminding us that central banks can be reined in.
LIMS is a finalist for the 2024 Templeton Freedom Award because of their work taking on Banque du Liban (BDL, the central bank of Lebanon), in particular, the bank’s Central Bank Subsidy Program (CBSP).
CBSP was effectively a price control program, causing severe shortages of goods like food, medicine, and gasoline throughout Lebanon.
In response, LIMS launched a multi-year “Subsidy-Free Lebanon” campaign that led to the following victories:
• 2021: BDL removed price controls for over 300 food items
• 2022: BDL removed price controls for wheat and fuel
• 2023: BDL removed price controls for baby formula
LIMS also successfully prevented $6 billion in bank subsidies (a bailout), which this year paved the way for parliament to pass its first balanced budget in decades.
These successes show that meaningful reforms are always possible, even against institutions as powerful as central banks.
Check out our new article about LIMS and learn more about the work that earned them the 2024 Middle East & North Africa Liberty Award.
And stay tuned for our upcoming Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner to see if they’ll also win the prestigious Templeton Freedom Award.
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