Any discussion of socio-political topics, especially if we are talking about discussions in an ideologically divided society, makes no sense without a common starting point, without a common set of ideas about what is unspoken due to common knowledge and banality. Of course, nothing in the near future will correct our political culture so that debaters do not try to fill the imaginary field of discussion with a jumble of figures at the start.

Many books have been written about how unfreedom is “made”: many social researchers from the textbook Arendt to van Creveld describe in detail the process of how the state “eats” the space of personal choice, personal independence of an individual - as a rule, with the consent and assistance of the majority of the governed, - how and why control over every aspect of life and activity, even the thoughts of subjects, is expanding and becoming more and more detailed, subtle and inevitable.

The recent announcement by the President of Columbia University about the creation of the Global Freedom of Expression & Information @Columbia project once again underscored the fact that these issues - freedom of speech, citizens' rights to information - remain of utmost importance to the academic community, and - if you look at the composition of the experts - global interstate institutions.

Freedom never comes cheap. But it is not a losing battle. Gary Becker At the beginning of May, the great Gary Becker passed away. There are not many people in economics whose reasoning opens up a new era. This can be said about Becker without any exaggeration. He figured out how to make the subject of economic analysis areas that had previously been beyond the reach of economists: crime, discrimination, domestic work, human capital.

The InLiberty website has just undergone a major revamp and my column count is well into its fifth decade, so it's time to look at what I've done and think about what I should write and why in the future. Some of my past publications represent ordinary political and social journalism - attempts to comprehend some common problems that many authors and bloggers express. In principle, I expected that such texts should be understandable to an ordinary, more or less educated person.