Anthony de Jasay (1925 – 2019) was an influential independent philosopher and economist who has become one of the world’s foremost exponents of classical liberalism.
Following World War II, de Jasay worked as a freelance journalist in his native Hungary until he was forced into exile. He became a research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and has published in the Economic Journal, the journal of Political Economy, and other scholarly journals. In the popular press, his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Le Monde, and the Neue Züricher Zeitung.
He is the author of such celebrated books as The State (1985), Social Contract, Free Ride: A Study of Public Goods Problem (1980), Choice, Contract, Consent: A Restatement of Liberalism (1991), Before Resorting to Politics (1996), Against Politics: Government, Anarchy, and Order (1997), and Justice and Its Surroundings (2002).