One of my great intellectual heroes is no more. Economist and classical liberal scholar Steve Horwitz has died.

Steve lost the fight to cancer. Far too young.

Steve and I was in contact over the years and he was always an extremely kind person and even when we disagreed (which wasn’t often) he always remained a gentleman scholar. A real Mensch.

Steve Horwitz was a great economist and particularly is writing on monetary disequilibrium inspired me a great deal. He was an Austrian and I am a monetarist, but we very much agreed on how to see monetary matters – both of us were inspired by the great economist Leland Yeager.

In recent years I have kept in contact with Steve though social media and again and again I have found myself in agree with Steve’s take on current affairs – both when he has been speaking out populism on the right and the left and in favour of a classical liberal world order.

To me Steve represented the best in classical liberal thinking – freedom, openness, tolerance, peace and optimism.

We have lost Steve far too early but his great scholarly work is still with us and I encourage everybody to read Steve’s books and articles.

My sympathies are with Steve’s wife Sarah and his children.

Rest in Peace Steve. You will be dearly missed.