The Later Years of Armen Alchian

Abstract

Alchian, too, harbored similar passions for the intellectual and market freedom the Hoover Institution espoused, and concerns about differential power. His family had also escaped a harsher life in Eastern Europe where there was an intense monopolization of power, and where the populace subsequently revolted to wrest power, only to replace it with another form of coercion. Alchian and Demsetz were kindred spirits in their regard for the often painful power of coercion.